Indifference: The Life of a Boy Named Matt
by Borderline247
Summary: The story of Mail Jeevas's life of growing up at Wammy's with Mello, embarking with him on a journey to catch Kira, the friendship and later love between them, and their inevitable deaths. Rated T for swearing, violence, and lemons.
1. Chapter 1: Introduction

_Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note or any of its respective characters, but if I did Light would die earlier on and L, Matt, and Mello would all live happily ever. Sadly that isn't what happens in this fanfiction XD. This is my version of Matt's life, told from the point of an anonymous shinigami who wrote Matt's name in his Death Note to gain the rest of his life span. And fangirls (and possibly fanboys) there will be MattXMello later on, as well as some smexy lemons. But do try to focus on the more serious and finer __points of the tale XD. Anyways, without farther ado._

As the bullets went through his chest and embedded themselves into his internal organs, Matt didn't even think about the pain. Only two thoughts ran through his mind as he slumped back against the car, knowing that he would die in seconds, that this breath, this moment would be his last.

The first, a name; Mello. Mello, Mello, Mello. _Mihael. _The alias suddenly switched to his true name. Something that Matt had heard only once, whispered in a sweet cool breath from soft lips on his ear. _Call me Mihael_. Only on that night, that beautiful night, was he allowed to let Mello's real name roll of his tongue. That night, the one where they confessed everything, the only night when they hadn't lied or fought. The only night they had been honest with each other and themselves.

Matt's eyes slowly began to close as a single tear slipped out and made its way down his cheek, carrying some of the blood with it as it went. Perhaps it was a tear shed for lost friendship. Or for love. Or maybe simply for time he'd never have and things he'd never do. But either way, in that moment Matt had his last thought. And surprisingly, it wasn't 'Mello'. It was something else.

_They were wrong.__

Throughout Mail Jeevas's whole life, before he was even called 'Matt', people could describe him in just one word. 'Indifferent'. He didn't seem to care about anything. When Mail skinned his knee in kindergarten, he didn't cry. He just stared at the blood. When a kid told a funny joke in class, he didn't laugh. When the school yard bullies picked on him relentlessly, he wasn't angry or upset. He wasn't anything. He just _was._

Still, this lack of emotion didn't particularly concern anyone. Not at all. He was simply a strange, peculiar, monotone little boy. No one knew why he was like this. No one asked. No one cared. Nobody would ever guess that his father came home high every night, that his mother was eternally drunk and oblivious to his yelps of pain as his father hit him over and over again, yelling at him that he would stop once Mail managed not to cry. Oh yes, Mail was an expert at being indifferent.

It hadn't always been like this though. Daddy hadn't always been with them. He had been in a place called prison until Mail was four, and back then things were good. Mommy loved him back then. Back then his clothes were washed, his meals made, and Mommy never hit him, not _ever_. She would play games with him, and hug him, and read to him before he fell asleep. The last thing he heard in the waking world was his mother's soft voice, willing him into sleep.

But then everything changed. Daddy was here to stay now, along with the syringes and broken bottles that now littered his living room floor. And Daddy made sure that the ugly blue and black bruises on Mail's body stayed as well, and stayed hidden.

Some days Mail thought about running away. But he never did. He could never bring himself to leave his Mommy, no matter how drunk she was. Somehow, although he was only six years old, Mail knew why his mother drank. To forget life, her situation. To be oblivious to everything, the sorrow and the pain. Even the love for her son.

Mail wanted to be angry with her at times too. He wanted to scream. _Why? Why are you trying to forget me? Why won't you look at me? Why won't you protect me? Why won't you tell me you love me? _But he didn't do that either. And if he did perhaps she would not hear him, or at least pretend that she didn't.

Some days were better than others. Some days his parents went out. They never took him with them, or told him where they were going. Sometimes they would come back an hour or so later with more alcohol and such. Other times they would disappear for a couple of days and resurface drunk and/or high as ever in the same dirty clothing sporting fresh bruises.

Mail never got scared when they were away. The longer his father was gone, the better, and there wasn't enough of his mother left to miss. Sometimes in their absence he would even have some fun.

He could watch whatever he wanted on T.V. or fool around on the old computer and not have to hide out in his room being as quiet as possible. He didn't have to eat the leftover stale crackers in the kitchen for every meal, and would take some money from his parent's room to order pizza, leaving it on the doorstep in case the delivery man questioned his age. He could sleep soundly in the peaceful silence of the house, not being kept awake by his father's shouting, smashing glass, or blasting music.

Unlike other kids his age who worried about when their parents would come home, Mail prayed that they would stay away for as long as possible.

On one of these occurrences, Mail's parents left for four days, the longest time they had ever been away. On this fourth day, something very significant happened. Something life-changing. It was what Mail thought to be the end of his very short, very sad young life. But it was not. On the contrary this event was really the beginning of _everything_. It would set him on his path, the course he would take that would make him become 'Matt', that would lead him to Mello.

One could call it 'destiny' or 'fate'. Or you could call it 'luck' or 'chance'. But whether it was meant to be or not, this is what happened. And as you already know the ending as well as the beginning, I shall reveal the middle. I advise you to grab some tissues and prepare yourself for the interesting, tragic, and sadly short life of Mail Jeevas.

_So what did you guys think? Good or bad? In between? Please review, constructive critism is always helpful._


	2. Chapter 2: Whales and Hospitals

_So here is chapter two! Sorry about the thirty day wait, I had some boring exams to attend to. Also I apologize for any unrealisticness in Matt's injury or in the 9-1-1 call. I don't know how long it takes someone to pass out from blood loss, so yeah XD. And sorry if it's a little boring, it will get better once he goes to Wammy's. Anyways, here you go:_

After four days of his parent's absence, Mail Jeevas was not worried. He was not panicked or anxious. He did not stay up late worrying about where they, if they were alright, or when they would be coming home. No. He regarded the extended leave as a marvelous stroke of good luck.

He went through his day in a sleepy, relaxed haze. He woke up at nine. He ate a bowl of Lucky Charms and played on the computer and colored at the kitchen table with Crayola crayons, drawing a big blue whale. It was as his childhood should have been up to this point, minus parental guidance. Nothing was out of the ordinary.

In the afternoon, Mail was dancing around the house in a clumsy, joyful fashion to the scratchy static music of their old, slightly broken, radio. He was seeing how many times he could spin in a circle before he became dizzy and tumbled down in a disoriented heap. He could barely hear the lyrics of the song but he liked the beat and the way it filled the silence of the lonely, unloved house. Sometimes he would crank the radio the entire time his parents were away, just so he could hear something other than the sounds of his own footsteps.

At the height of his spinning competition with himself, having just broken what he believed to be an impressive record of 34 turns, Mail tripped over his own sock covered feet. His legs were then held up by the tips of his toes as his forearms absorbed the impact of the fall. He panted and then let out a laugh at his clumsiness, not even noticing that anything was wrong until he lifted his palms and turned them over.

Perhaps the adrenaline from the fall had numbed his senses, but the sharp stinging pain began when he saw the long red slash down his right wrist. A piece of clear, curved glass peeked out of his skin, grinning up at him maliciously. Drops of warm blood rolled steadily down his arms.

Mail hissed and cradled the injury to his chest. He was unsure of where to go from here. On the one hand he felt the instinct that he should pull the piece of glass out. On the other hand, wouldn't that just cause more bleeding? And it would hurt. It would _really_ hurt. His father's beatings had not prepared him for this awful sensation. He was already feeling light headed and a dizziness that was not due to the spinning.

He panicked for what to do but an idea came to him when he looked up and saw the dark grey home phone sitting on the counter. In class they had taught them to dial 9-1-1 in case of emergency. This was an emergency, right? He could imagine how angry Daddy would be if the police showed up at their house, especially for no good reason. But the blood continued to drip and it was slowly pooling on the floor. He reached up for the phone and pressed the buttons carefully, hesitantly. 9…1…1…

"9-1-1, what's your emergency?"

"Um…" Mail found himself at a loss for words once the female voice came out of the receiver. He tried to remember what to say. "My name is Mail Jeevas. I live at house number fifty-one on Larkson Road and I'm only six years old and my parents aren't home and I cut my wrist and it's bleeding a lot, and I'm scared and my teacher always said to call this number if something really bad happens, this counts right?" He finished in a rush, afraid he wouldn't be able to tell them everything as his eyelids began to droop.

"Alright, stay calm. We're sending over an ambulance right now. You say your parents aren't home?"

"Yeah, that's right."

"Do you know where they are or their cell phone numbers so we can contact them?"

"Uh, n-no. Sorry. But they always come home eventually. Well, today's the fourth day and that's the longest they've ever been gone but they always come back!" He exclaimed.

"You've been home alone for the past four days?"

"Yes."

"And you're only six years old?"

"Um, yes?" His answer hitched into a question.

"And you don't know where they are?"

"No." Mail could hear some muffled voices through the receiver.

"Send the police and child services as well. I think we may have a case of neglect here." _Neglect? _thought Mail. _Is that what they call it? _For the past two years Mail had never given a word to what it was that his parents did to him, and now that he had it, it didn't seem to fit. It didn't sound real or right. It echoed in his ears. It was like when you hear about a misfortune that happened to someone else.

"Are you still with Mail?"

"Oh! Y-yes, but my head feels funny." Nausea overwhelmed him as he watched the red puddle expanding on the linoleum tiles.

"Alright, just hang on until the ambulance gets there. Is your front door unlocked?"

"There is a key under the mat." Mail said sleepily.

"What room are you in?"

"Kitchen." He mumbled.

"Okay, just stay put until they get there."

"Hmm…" His eyes were closing.

"Mail? Are you still with me?"

"…"

"Mail?"

"…" Mail Jeevas was lying unconscious on the kitchen floor.  
>_<p>

_Mail was having a very strange and vivid dream. In the dream, he was riding on the back of a great blue whale, so far out in the ocean that he could see nothing on the horizon but water. Mail had no idea how he had gotten on the back of the whale to begin with, but he had a desperate notion that he must reach the other side of the sea at all costs._

_There were grey clouds in the sky, and Mail could hear rumbles of thunder signalling the beginning of rain. But when it began, it was not ordinary rain at all. It was red. Drops of red rain fell from the sky and mixed with the dark water, staining it. Mail's heart started to pound with dread as he watched the entire sea take on a violent shade of deep, bloody red. _

_The whale stopped swimming, refusing to take him any farther. Water shot up out of its spout and sprayed over the expanse of its blubbery skin. It made it quite slippery and Mail found himself sliding backwards. Terror rose up in him and he let out a shriek, clinging on to the whale's tail with all his might. No matter what, he knew he mustn't touch the red water. But the whale was not having it. It pulled its tail upward so Mail was hanging in the air, his little fingers tearing away from the corner of the tail. He screamed when he felt the cold and heard the splash. He was sinking. He kicked his legs and flailed his arms, but he was still sinking._

_He opened his eyes under the water, and stared up at the light piercing through the rose colored waves. He found himself feeling less horrified and more sleepy. But a noise stopped him from descending into slumber. A noise he would never expect to hear in the middle of the sea. It was a quiet, yet incessant. Beep…beep…beep.  
>_<em>

When Mail's eyes opened he found himself to no longer be in the middle of the sea. However the beeping had seemed to follow him, as he could hear it in the background. _Where,_ he thought,_ is all the water? _He was lying in a bed that certainly wasn't any colour of red. There were white sheets, white walls, and a white tile floor, and all of it smelled much too clean for his liking. And then there was the beeping. _Beeping…beeping… monitor!_ Now he understood. _Hospital._ He was in the hospital.

Mail looked down at his right wrist. A light thread ducked in and out of his skin. He ran his finger over it, feeling the small bumps of knots. He had never had stitches before and he had always though they would hurt, but he could not feel them at all. He propped himself up on his pillows to have a better look at his surroundings. How long had he been here anyways? It seemed to be sometime in the evening, if he could judge by the faint light filtering through the gauzy curtains.

"Mail?" A soft voice drew his eyes to the door. Before he laid eyes on the nurse, for a brief moment, he had thought the voice was his mother's and was hit with a pang of longing. "I'm Nurse Broud, how are you feeling?"

"I'm…" Mail really wasn't sure what he was feeling at all. His injury didn't cause him any pain but he had never been in a hospital since he could remember and he had already decided that he didn't like them. But he settled with "fine." Nurse Broud gave him a gentle smile.

"You have had quite the day Mail. That was some fall you took. We've removed the glass and stitched up the wound, but we think it's best if you stay here for now while the police locate your parents." All Mail really wanted to do was go home and sleep in his own bed that didn't smell like Windex, but he supposed that other grownups might not understand that he could take care of himself.

"Okay," He said. "But when will they find them? Will they come and see me?"

"Hopefully soon and of course they will! I'm sure they'll be quite worried about you." Mail found these words to be doubtful. His mother had never taken him to the doctor for the bruises and cuts from Daddy, so why would she care now that he was in the hospital? "Are you hungry Mail?" This question brought him to the sudden realization that yes, he was starving. He hadn't eaten anything since breakfast.

"Yeah."

"Are you feeling well enough to come with me down to the cafeteria and get some food?" Mail looked down at himself uncertainly. It appeared that the nurses had changed him into blue pajamas and a white robe, and while they were nicer than his unwashed jeans and t-shirt he wasn't sure if he should go out of his room in them.

"It's alright. Most of the patients wear pajamas and I've even brought you some slippers." Mail considered this and slowly pushed himself out of the bed, slipping on the soft shoes. Nurse Broud offered him her hand and he reluctantly took it. It was soft and warm, just like her voice, and she once again reminded him of how his mother used to be. He decided that he liked Nurse Broud even if the rest of the hospital seemed unappealing.

Once in the cafeteria Nurse Broud got him some spaghetti and a carton of milk. He devoured them quickly and peered across his table at the other doctors and patients. There were people in wheel chairs, and casts, and there was a man with a white patch over his eye. Some of them seemed happy, and the rest seemed bored. Some of them moved in such a slow dreary way that it made him sad just to watch them. _How many of you, _he thought, _are dying?_

"So," said Nurse Broud. "You're in grade one huh? How do you like it? What school do you go to?"

"Oakdale Elementary. And it's alright. It's pretty boring though." Mail had always found his schoolwork to be entirely too easy. However he figured it was only because he was young. Perhaps if he had any friends at school he would of liked it better but other kids didn't seem to like him very much. When their parents were around, they would keep them away from him and say something about him coming from a bad family. Mail could agree that his family wasn't the best, but did it really make him a bad person too?

"Nurse Broud?" Mail and she turned towards the newcomer behind them. It was a tall middle aged police officer who looked quite tired and uncomfortable. He had large bags under his grey eyes and his had drooped to the side of his head like it couldn't wait to fall off. An overweight woman with curly brunette hair stood behind him. She stared at Mail intensely which made him squirm in his seat. "May we speak with you for a moment?" Nurse Broud's face drained of colour.

"Y-yes, of course. Mail, could you wait here for a few minutes?"

"Okay." Mail whispered and watched her walk with them until they were out of ear shot. He was disturbed to see her fluctuating expressions during the conversation, especially without the words that went with them. She went from upset to angry to stressed and back again. She even seemed close to crying for a moment. He was even more unsettled when the police officer and the woman came back without Nurse Broud. He could feel an unpleasant churning begin in his stomach.

"Mail, I'm Officer Brian and this is Mrs. Woods from child services. Would you mind coming with us back to your room so we can talk about some things?" Mail wanted to ask what those things were exactly, but something told him not to.

"Where is Nurse Broud? Did you find my parents?"

"Nurse Broud had to step out for a moment and your parents well…" He and Mrs. Woods exchanged a look. "We'll tell you about that once were in your room." Mail swallowed and got up from the table. Mail had lived through bad things his whole life, but bat news had never been delivered to him. He had no idea what it could be.

Once they were back in his room, Mail sat on the edge of the bed and placed a pillow across his lap, hugging it as if it could protect him from whatever was coming next.

"As we have gathered Mail, your father was in prison for theft until you were two years old, correct?" Mail had not known it was for theft but he nodded.

"And your father also had some problems with drugs and alcohol didn't he?" Mrs. Woods asked. Mail nodded again. "Sometimes Mail," she continued. "Drugs and alcohol can make people act strangely. Sometimes it can make them do bad things. Did your father ever do anything mean to you?" Mail's pulse pounded in his ears. Thousands of memories flashed though his mind. Memories of rolled down sleeves in summer, and of having to wear shirts in pools. Memories of fists against flesh and of purple and blue skin. Memories of hands holding his head under water and memories of words. Words that hurt. Words like worthless and stupid. Threats. _'Don't you ever tell anyone,' _a harsh voice whispered in his ear. _'Or I will kill you.' _Mail's hands shook. His face went white.

"It's alright, Mail. You can tell us. It's safe to tell us, no matter what he said." Mail looked up at Mrs. Woods and tears began to well up in his dark blue eyes.

"Yes," he barely spoke. "He hits me… and other things." Mrs. Woods nods knowingly.

"Mail, we have some difficult news to tell you about your parents. You may be confused about how you feel about this with your relationship with your father but…" Officer Brian trailed off.

"Mail, your parents got into a car accident. Your father, he was driving drunk you see and…" Mail's mouth fell open.

"Is Mommy at the hospital too? Is she okay? Did she…" Mail thought about everything he knew about car accidents. He would often play car chase games on the computer and, more often than not, his car would crash. When you crash you lost a life, and if you lost too many lives you died. His eyes widened. _You died. _"Did my…"

"Mail, your parents died on impact with the other car. I know this may be hard for you to understand, but there wasn't any pain at all." Mail sat in silence, unblinking. It all felt too unreal. Was he supposed to cry? It was his mother but… he would never be hurt by his father again. But without his parents what was he supposed to do? They had never taken care of him but was he supposed to live in that big house alone for the rest of his life? He didn't have any relatives. He was… he was a… orphan. The word was foreign and strange. And his Mommy… he never had a chance of getting her back now, the real her. He would never hear her soft voice reading to him, ever again. To his own surprise, Mail began to cry.

"What," he sobbed. "Am I supposed to do?" Mrs. Woods pulled some tissues out of her pocket and handed them to him. She began rubbing his back, but he shrugged her off. He didn't want to be comforted by anyone but his mother.

"Mail, after your parent's funeral you're going to be sent to an orphanage that your parents had written in their Will. You won't stay there forever of course, you might be transferred into the foster care system soon, or you could even be adopted. Perhaps this is all too much for you to take in right now. Would you like us to get Nurse Broud?"

The sentences all sounded muffled and far away. It was dreamlike and his nightmare about the whale earlier even seemed more real. They had asked him if he would like something. What was he supposed to like? His mother was gone. His father could never hurt him, but it was at the price of his mother's life.

He did not weep for the lifeless ghost he had known for the past two years, that hollow shell held no resemblance to her. He cried for the woman who made him soup when he was sick. Who twirled her in his arms with the radio turned up as she did the dishes. Who didn't stop reading or singing to him until he fell asleep. For that in a child's mind is the very definition of love. The opposite of what his father did to him. And now that she was gone, with no possibility of returning, Mail felt that no one could ever hold such strong love for him again. Any kind of love for that matter. But of course, as always, Mail Jeevas was very wrong. Very wrong indeed.

_So what did you guys think? I know that wasn't a very good chapter but I wasn't really sure how to get this story moving along to where I want it to go. Anyways, please review, criticism is always appreciated ._


	3. Chapter 3: Hanging

_Here's the third chapter. This is the longest one yet I think, and also the best I've written. Thank you to anyone who read the last one and I apologize for my lack of knowledge about computer viruses and the like. I've also was been technologically challenged XD. Anyways, here you are:_

In first three seconds of fully wearing one, Mail has already decided that he hates suits. He hates the scratchy black material and the way he looks so small in it. He hates the soft tie that feels more like a coarse rope, like a noose around his neck, for Mail is _hanging_. He is hanging from a very thin string that could break at any moment, and although he is only six years old he is very knowledgeable in the processes of stretching, bending, tearing, ripping, inevitably breaking, and then fading. He has watched his mother do it for the past two years, and through enduring all the anger of his father, it seems that the possibility of getting her back was the only thing stopping him from doing the same.

However what Mail does not take into account is that his heart is quite strong, and that it's each and every beat is a punch for it is a fighter, and it will hold firmly onto that string until the day he dies, which is sadly not as far off as we would like.

As he ties up the laces on his leather shoes, Nurse Broud comes in to tell him that it is time and gives him the white lilies that he will be placing on his parent's graves. It has taken very little time to bury his parents, considering there is no one besides himself to mourn them, and Nurse Broud decided that he was far too young to be there for the lowering of the coffins into the ground. Mail agrees with her on this, although he suspects that his age has nothing to do with it. There will be no real funeral, just himself, Nurse Broud, and a priest to say a few words, although Mail believes that his father has never set foot into a church his entire life and it has been a long time since his mother attended. However, Mail feels that he has to believe in heaven since that is the only way he will ever see his mother again, and he is sure that his father is not going to be there.

Nurse Broud holds his hand during the whole ride to the cemetery, and she has tissues poking out of her purse for what she believes will be an emotional farewell. Mail is not sure if he will cry at all, for he had not since the day he got the news and his eyes have felt tired and too dry since. They almost refused

to open this morning and they glared at the harsh sun with contempt.

Once they find the headstones, Mail immediately stoops down to inspect the engravings. He is relieved to see that his father's grave merely reads 'Husband and Father' and has no mentions of 'loving' or 'faithful' or any other deceiving nonsense. He didn't think he would be able to stand it otherwise. He is also pleased to that the word loving has been slipped in before mother and not wife on his mother's rock. He knows that his mother has not loved his father for a very long time for obvious reasons, and is delighted that whoever carved into these stones could somehow sense this as well. _This means_, he thinks. _That she must of really loved me after all, even if she did forget about me for a while._

Mail lays the all but one of the lilies on his mother's grave, thinking that his father must have been a good person at one point in his life and the flower is for whenever that was. After he does this Nurse Broud puts her arm around his shoulder and the priest begins to speak. Mail does not listen to his words exactly, but more the sound of his voices lulling in the background. He is more absorbed taking in the spring air, which is so fresh that he feels like he's drowning in it. He wonders if death is like drowning or sleeping. He hopes it's like sleeping.

When it is time to leave Mail is proud that he did not cry although he is not sure why. He allows himself to crouch next to his mother's headstone however and rests his forehead against the cool surface. He closes his eyes for a moment and just enjoys remembering everything he can about the real her, placing these memories in a box in his mind and sealing them up tightly so he can take them wherever he happens to go next, and take them out whenever his last string begins to fray.  
>_<p>

Mail sits on the hospital bed beside Nurse Broud, waiting for Mrs. Woods to come and pick him up and drive him to his house where he will pack his things, and then to The Quill Orphanage where he will be staying… temporarily? Mail is not sure. He would rather stay at his house but his parent's will clearly stated where he was supposed to go. He figures that they did not put much thought into the decision for it is merely the closest orphanage in their area. He wonders what living there will be like and if he will make any friends there. Looking back on his six years of life, he knows he has never once had a real friend and he would not mind getting one. They will all not know anything about him, and there will be no parents to whisper about him coming from a bad family. It isn't what he would call an opportunity considering how he got in this situation, but it is an optimistic factor.

Mrs. Woods already told him that he will be going to the same school, which seemed strange to him. All the old aspects of his life were being stolen away from him by fate and he got to keep one of the things he did not want? What a cruel joke.

"Feel free to write me whenever you want," says Nurse Broud, handing him her address on a crumpled piece of paper. "I'd like to know how you're doing and…" she trails off and bites her lip, swallowing the last part of her sentence. _I know you don't have anybody else._

"Thank you. I will, I promise. I've never had a pen pal before and that'd be cool." said Mail, giving her a small smile. He could sense her empathy towards him and he didn't want her to worry, for in his short time in her care she had done quite enough. When Mrs. Woods came to take him away to whatever was awaiting him, he made sure that he gave her a hug goodbye.

"Are you alight?" asked Mrs. Woods.

Mail had had his hand on the doorknob for the past five minutes and he could not figure out why he was so scared to open it. His parent's had not died in this house, and the thought of all the beatings he'd taken inside those walls should not paralyze him for they had not occurred that long ago. Perhaps it was just the action of what he was about to do that froze his hand to the brass. He was about to take his things out of this house, and leave it behind forever. He did not understand why he would miss a structure where such unhappy things took place, but he knew he was going to. Maybe the bad memories just didn't taint the good ones as much as he had thought they did.

"I'm fine." said Mail, and with that, he pushed the door open.

The beer bottles and syringes had been cleaned up by whoever had wiped his blood from his fall off the floor, and without them it appeared that this could be a time before his father had came back and ruined his and his mother's life. Mail held on tightly to the backpack and suitcase that Mrs. Woods had given him and went upstairs to his room.

After he had packed the necessities into the backpack he filled the suitcase with more sentimental items. A stuffed dog he had gotten for his third birthday, the books his mother used to read to him, and a scrap book filled with pictures up to a little after his fourth year. He knew that most of his parent's things would be donated so he made sure to also pack some of his mother's old shirts, which still smelled like her. He sat under the hangers in her closet and inhaled until Mrs. Woods came upstairs to check on him.

"Are you ready to go?"

"Yes. What's going to happen to the house anyways?" he asked.

"Well, your parents had some debts so even though it's left in the will to you it's going to have to be sold." Mail nods. He had expected that.

When he shuts the door on his old life Mail feels a strange tingling in his fingers and he feels a strong urge to open it again and peer inside. He ignores this and is relieved once he and Mrs. Woods are in the car and driving down the road.

The director of The Quill Orphanage is named Mr. Marshall, and he is old and tall and reminds Mail of a bird. He has light gold-brown eyes that stare down a hooked beak of a nose and his lip twitches to the side every so often in an unnerving manner. His hair is salt and pepper gray and has balded just past his ears. Mail is a little wary to be left in his care when Mrs. Woods drives away.

"Well, I should show you up to your room. Everyone is at school at the moment so it's a little quiet right now." The halls of the orphanage were painted a light yellow and they seemed pleasant enough to Mail, and he supposed that it was a nice change from the white of the hospital.

Once on the third floor of the building Mr. Marshall pushed open a dark brown door to where his room would be. The walls were light blue and there was a brown shelf nailed on the wall above a single bed. "We have an odd number of children around your age so you'll be in here by yourself." Mail was relieved to hear it as he had never had to share a room before and he wasn't at all sure how to go about it. "I'll leave you to unpack anyway. The closest bathroom is just five doors down the hall to your right, and my office is just beside the main entrance if you need anything."

Once alone, Mail sinks down on the bed and opens his suitcase. He places the mementos up on the shelf and stares at them. He rearranges them several times but he finds that no matter what order he puts them in, he cannot manage to make the room look or feel like his new home. _This is just how it's going to have to be, _he thinks. _You will get used to it.  
><em>_

The next few weeks at The Quill Orphanage were absolutely dreary. He did not make a single friend for he found himself too shy and the majority of the kids to be just like the ones at school. Dull and mean. _I wonder if certain people are just supposed to be alone,_ thought Mail. _Maybe not everybody is allowed to have friends and that's just the way the world works_. He found this idea to be disheartening and he wished he hadn't thought of it at all.

On top of loneliness, he was uncomfortable. He was unused to not being able to come and go as he pleased with no one caring where that was. He wasn't allowed to go to the park until the day's that his entire age group went on chaperoned outings. He only had 30 minutes on one day per week in the building's computer lab. He had nowhere to go and nothing to do on weekends so he just sat on his bed, staring at the ceiling, daydreaming. He missed his room, and his house, and his street. He missed the familiarity and the privacy. But no matter how much he missed everything he could not decide whether it was better to be here all alone or for things to be like they were before. He'd have to go through his father's beating but his mother would be there, and maybe if Mail had told one of his teachers about his father he would have been sent away and his mother would be herself again.

_Maybe I could have fixed everything, if only I hadn't been such a coward_, he thought. _Is it all my fault then? Everything that happened? _The guilt began to torment him. By the end of the fifth week, all Mail wanted to do was to leave the orphanage. And leave he would.  
>_<p>

On one of his brief turns in the computer lab, Mail was fooling around as usually. He was in the middle playing one of his favorite games and had just reached a new high score when a bubble appeared in the corner of the screen; _Warning: Five new viruses detected. _Mail's eyebrows drew together in confusion. _Viruses?_ He thought. _I remember my computer used to have those, but I fixed it. _Mail began to type busily on the key board until Mr. Marshall came to collect him.

"What," he asked, peering over his shoulder. "Have you done here?" Mail was worried for a moment that he might have done something wrong. "May I see?" He quickly moved aside so Mr. Marshall could sit down. "Did you fix all of these yourself?" Mail nodded sheepishly. "Who taught you about computer codes?"

"Nobody," whispered Mail. "I looked some stuff up in the library, but mostly I taught myself. It's not that hard really." Mr. Marshall's face broke out into the only grin Mail had ever seen him wear.

"Oh it's not hard is it? Then would you mind showing me how you do it?" Mail shrugged.

"I guess not."

"Good. Because I know someone who would be very interested to see it. Very interested indeed."  
>_<p>

Two days after this incident Mail was called down to the cafeteria to write a test. Mr. Marshall had been very pleased after he had shown him what he knew about computers, and had said that he was going to call an old friend and ask him to send a special test for Mail to complete. He had not told him what was going to be on the test or what it was for which Mail found horribly unfair. How did they expect him to study?

Mail found himself to be very nervous once he got down to the cafeteria and sat in front of the ominous white sheets of paper. He clutched his pencil tightly in his sweaty palm. _What if I fail or something? _He thought. _What is this even supposed to determine? _

However once he began to write he started to relax. The questions were not as hard as he thought they would be although they were much more difficult than anything he had had to complete at school. Most of the answers came naturally to him, taken from the knowledge stored in his brain from the countless books he had signed out at the library, for Mail loved to read. A few stumped him of course, but he thought that it went rather well.

After he was finished Mr. Marshall took the papers away and told him to wait there for a few minutes. Mail had no idea what he was waiting for and found himself impatient, having been left alone with nothing to do. He swung his legs back and forth and drummed his fingers on the wood of the table, and he was still doing this when one of the strangest men he had ever seen walked into the room.

He was tall and lanky and hunched. He wore a white long sleeve shirt and his thumbs were hooked into the front pockets of his light blue jeans. His feet were bare of both socks and shoes, and atop his head was a shock of messy, inky black hair. Bags outlined deep dark eyes which stared at Mail with such intensity that he felt like he might fall into them and never get out. He crouched on the table across from him in a way that reminded Mail of an owl.

"Hello Mail," he said. "My name is Ryuzaki." Mail tilted his head to the side. He could tell the name was foreign but he could not decide what race the man was. He was as pale as ghost.

"Um, hi." Mail greeted meekly. He found the man's focused gaze to be unnerving.

"You did very well on this." Said Ryuzaki, gesturing to the test which Mail had not noticed was in his hands.

"I did?" he asked, relieved. "What's it for anyways, if you don't mind me asking?" The corners of Ryuzaki's mouth twitched upwards.

"I don't mind at all. This is a test of intelligence, designed by myself. And you scored 90%, which is the third highest percentage anyone has ever gotten." Mail's eyes widened.

"What does that mean?"

"It means," Ryuzaki whispered. "That you are a very smart boy." Mail's brow furrowed in confusion. He had always done well in school but he had never considered himself to be smart. He had never considered himself to be much of anything really. If he had been smart or clever, he would've figured out a way to save his mom.

"I doubt it." He sighed. "My dad always said I was pretty dumb actually." Ryuzaki frowned.

"Then I think that your father must have been a very short sighted man. Or perhaps a jealous one. Either way, he has smothered your potential up to this point, and I would like the opportunity to fix that." Ryuzaki laid the pages down on the table and smoothed them out slowly. "Do you like it here Mail?"

"No," Mail answered immediately. "I don't."

"So you would be open to the idea of living somewhere else? Of leaving this city and everything in it behind?" Mail wasn't sure exactly where Ryuzaki was going this but he nodded. He wasn't attached to his school, or this orphanage. He hated them. Anywhere else would be better in his mind. "Well then, this works out quite nicely. You see Mail, there is another orphanage that I think could nurture your talent. It is also a school for gifted children. It's in a place called England, which is very far away from here."

"I know where England is." Mail snapped, but felt bad about it only a second later. After all this man seemed to be offering what Mail had been only dreaming about these past few weeks. A way to leave, an escape. What right did he have to be rude. "Sir." He added, trying to soften the harshness of his previous tone. To his surprise, Ryuzaki let out a small chuckle.

"That's quite alright. But Mail, this orphanage I am telling you about, in the past some people have found that it was not to their liking." Mail's brow furrowed as he watched Ryuzaki's dark eyes glaze over with an emotion he couldn't place. Sadness? Anger? Regret? What? "If you decide that you would like to accept my offer and come there, it would most likely be different from anything you have ever experienced. There is a very… _competitive _atmosphere. Some people find the pressure of it to be too much."

"Competitive? But what would a bunch of kids be competing for?" Mail questioned. Ryuzaki pressed the tip of his thumb to his lips before he answered, a childlike action that Mail had never seen an adult perform. But then again, Ryuzaki didn't seem to be like most adults.

"They are competing to replace me. I have a very important job Mail, and that job cannot be left to just anybody if something were to happen to me. And it is very likely that something will happen, be it sooner or later." Mail frowned at the lonely sound of his voice and the way it echoed slightly throughout the empty room.

"So your job is dangerous then? And if I went to this orphanage then I would be competing for it too?"

"That is correct."

"So… what is it?" Ryuzaki smiled sleepily and placed his hands on his bent knees, palms facing upwards as if he were holding something.

"I am the greatest detective in the world Mail. I say this not to boast, but because that it is merely the title people have given me, and the one I have earned. And because of this title and the many cases I have solved, because of the people I have put behind bars, a lot of people would like to see harm come to me." Mail raised his eyebrows in astonishment at this explanation.

"If you're really as great and as famous as you say, then why have I never heard of you before now?"

"Because I have lied to you and my name is not Ryuzaki. But if I tell you what it really is you must first agree to come to England and live in the orphanage I have told you about. You must be committed to giving your best effort in competing for my position. You must promise me you'll never reveal my true identity, and you must, absolutely must think very carefully about this decision."

What was there to think about? To Mail it seemed so simple. He didn't know the complexities of this choice, and all the places it would lead him to.

"Yes," he said. "Absolutely yes. I agree, I will, I promise. Yes." Ryuzaki sighed, and then extended his hand, taking Mail's and shaking it gently.

"It is very nice to meet you Mail. My name is L."

_So how was that? Please review and tell me what you think, I love all the feedback you give me. In the next chapter Mello will make his first appearance, which I am very excited about XD. I can't wait for this dynamic duo to begin._


	4. Chapter 4: Burning Blue

_New longest chapter, oh yeah! I hope you like it :). Sorry about Matt and Mello's lack of friendship at first, I promise that as their friendship grows they will become the dynamic duo we all know and love. And also I apologize if Mello seems out of character but this is just how I interpret him when he's young. When he grows his character will develop. Anyways, here it is:_

"It's very beautiful, isn't it?" Mail looked up from the window slowly at the sound of Ryuzaki's – Or L's- voice. He was reluctant to tear his eyes away from the plane's window and the colors that stretched across the sky beyond the glass. It was strange to see the city that held his home growing smaller and smaller as the plane rose from the ground, until it became a patch work quilt, sewn into sections of green and grey. He supposed that it was not at as ugly as he had once thought, at least not from this perspective. It was hard to imagine that anything at all could be ugly with a sunrise soaked horizon casting its light upon it. The pastel pinks and oranges seemed to dribble down from the sun and blend into the clouds. _Like painting, _thought Mail as he smiled.

"The world is a very big place isn't it?" he asked. Being in a plane had made Mail come to the conclusion that all children do at some point or another – that he is a very tiny part of something larger than anyone knows or understands and that he has very little effect on this great expanse of land and sea and the things inside it.

"Quite the opposite actually," replied Ryuzaki. "You have some knowledge of the layout of our solar system, correct? Earth is the fifth largest planet out of the eight we have. And that's just our galaxy. The universe itself goes on forever. And we don't know what's in it past a certain point. If you take everything and put it to scale, the Earth and what goes on in it are completely insignificant. We are but a speck of dust in the scheme of things."

The corners of Mail's lips were pulled down at this thought. He didn't like the idea of the Earth and it's events being completely irrelevant. How could all those wars that he'd read about, all those spectacular stories in history books mean nothing? How could all the lives lived out on this planets, tangled and complicated, be worthless over all?

"But compared to _me _the world is really big." L smiled at the boy's troubled expression.

"Yes, that is true. I suppose anything could be large or small, useless or valued, good or evil, depending on what you compared it to. Nothing is really one or the other is it? There is a vast grey area for everything." Mail shifted in his seat restlessly. If he was this tired of sitting still already then the rest of the ride to England would be very difficult for him.

"Have you seen a lot of the world, Ryuzaki? What with you're job and all?"

"Yes, I have travelled throughout most of the globe. Why, is there anywhere in paticular you'd like to hear about?"

"What's it like in England?" The question had been on Mail's mind all day. He hoped that it would be better than his old city, but how could he be certain that things would not end up exactly the same? Perhaps the orphanage would be just as miserable as the last one, only with a harder workload. If this was the case, he knew he wouldn't be able to do anything about it. He had nowhere else to go, and L had already warned him that he may not like it at Wammy's. He had to be greatful to him simply for the offered chance.

"It is usually rainy and very green." Mail glared at this short description. "You will have to judge it for yourself."

When the plane finally landed England did prove to be very rainy. The enormous droplets of water poured down from the black clouds, splattering on the cold window of the car that Mail rested his head against. The man that had come to pick them up was old and sported a grey moustache, rectangular glasses, and a black bowler hat. He smelled of laundry and sweets and Mail liked and trusted him instantly. He had never interacted with many old people in his life since his grandparents had passed away before he was born, and he liked to imagine that this is what they would be like. L referred to the man as Watari (another foreign name that Mail had never heard before) and treated him with a warm familiarity, but Mail could not understand what their relationship was. He had never experienced the love of a father, and was unable to recognize it even when it was so clearly in front of him.

The car winded down many isolated country roads before it came to a halt outside the building clearly labelled 'Wammy's House' by a large bronze sign. Mail knew that it was time to get out but he was almost tempted to stay in the vehicle and burry himself into the leather seats. He was intimidated by the towering victorian gates surrounding the huge building, and he did not at all feel like being locked behind them. _Don't be a coward now,_ he thought to himself, and forced his feet to move forward so he could take his bags from Watari and make his way with him and Ryuzaki up the long drive way.

He was anxious as ever when L pushed open the tall and ominous brown doors, gesturing to Mail to go inside, and felt a change in the air as soon as he stepped over the threshhold. It seemed to creep up from the hardwood floor and wrap around Mail's legs, rooting him to the spot and sending tingles all over his body. L had to gently push his shoulder just to get him moving again. _This is a vey new place, _he thought as he eyed the wide deserted hallways. _And I think many things will happen to me here_. It was a vague idea and he wondered why it had come to him. Perhaps he was simply sensing the beginning of his new life and everything that would come along with it.

Watari and L lead the way into the room that sat to the right just beside the entrance. It was a gllomy office and a weary middle aged man sat behind an oak desk littered with paperwork. He seemed to be almost as sleep deprived as L, with bags under his eyes and disheveled curly grey hair. He rested his head in his hands and jerked upwards as soon as the odd party of three entered the room.

"Ryuzaki! I didn't know you'd be arriving with the boy so soon!" He quickly cleared the stray papers off the desk, rustling them around until they were in a somewhat neat pile in the corner and only one file lay directly before him. To Mail's surprise and uneasiness, his own name was printed in capitalized and bolded letters at the top.

"Good to see you again as well, Roger. I trust that you have organized all the information I have sent?"

"Yes, yes of course everything is set. Mail here is now an official student at Wammy's House. All that's left is an alias and I'm sure that won't take long?" It sounded like more of a question than a statement what with the way he looked back and forth from L to Watari.

"Um, what's an alias?" he whispered so quietly that at first he wasn't sure if anyone had heard him. Ryuzaki reached out to the side of the room, pulling a thick book down from the shelf that was nailed to the red wall. _Book of Names. _

"An alias Mail, is a word or a name that you use in place of your own so as not to be identified. All the children here at Wammy's have one for they will need it in the future so that they may succeed me. We have them pick one as soon as they arrive here so that they will have plenty of time to get used to it. And now it is your turn to select yours." He handed the book to Mail who ran his fingertips lightly over the worn pages.

"Any name I want?" He asked with wonder in his voice. He was starting to understand just how clean the new slate he had been given was.

"Yes, any one you want. But I advise you to choose carefully because once you do, you must never use your real name again. It is one of the very strict rules we have here." Mail wasn't sure how comfortable he was with this, no matter how exciting getting to name himself seemed. Mail was the name his mother had given him and one of the few things he had left of the old her. Would she have been upset to know that he was going to change it? Watari seemed to notice the uncertainty that crossed his face and knelt down next to the boy. He placed his soft hand on his shoulder.

"It's alright," he said. "It won't really be a _new_ name, merely a _fake_ one. It isn't going to change who you are or turn you into something your not. You won't have to forget your real one." He then leaned closer and placed his mouth next to Mail's ear. "I recommend choosing one that begins with the same letter, like our great detective L over there did." He winked at Mail, whose face broke out into a smile, one of the few he had had since his parent's deaths. All Watari had done was share a small secret with him, a little hint to L's identity. But Mail felt that Watari had one of those pleasent voices that could say anything and still be comforting. He opened the book and flipped to the M section.

_Matthew: Gift of God._

He wasn't sure why he picked it, because he didn't know much about God or anything, because his mother had stopped taking him to church when his father had come home, but it had a nice ring to it and it did begin with an M. He held the book up to Ryuzaki, his finger underlining the name.

"Matthew." L read outloud.

"Just Matt," Mail added as an afterthought. That way it would only be two letters away from his real name. "Please." Roger wrote the name down in brackets below the one that was already there.

"And for the next order of buisiness," began Ryuzaki. "Which room will Matt be staying in?" Roger began to fidget in his seat.

"Yes about that, could I speak with you and Watari alone for a moment on that subject?" L quirked one of his eyebrows at the question in confusion but nodded in agreement anyways.

"Alright. Do you mind waiting in the hall Matt?" Mail –or Matt as we must now call him – actually did mind very much since the dark hallway outside did not at all seem like a very nice place to wait, but he did not want to seem difficult so he slipped out of the room without a fuss. The door was shut behind him but Matt pressed his ear to the wood, curious as to why he was not allowed to hear the conversation inside. He had been raised to be an eavesdropper from listening carefully to the sound of his father's footsteps and determining whether they were angry or tired, so it wasn't paticularly hard to make the voices out.

"The only room he could share with someone in his age group is Mello. And I don't think that is a very good idea." Matt heard Roger say.

"Why not?" The soft monotone voice belonged to L.

"Because he'd terrify him obviously! You know he doesn't get along with the other children. You may have a lot of hope for him in being your heir and all. He is very intelligent, but that doesn't change the fact that he's a cold heated little bully!"

"I am afraid your dislike for children is causing you to exaggerate again, Roger. Mello is not cold hearted at all, he is actually quite emotional. His impoliteness is usually nothing more than a defense mechanism."

"I-I don't dislike children and I a-am not exaggerating! I am telling you Ryuzaki that boy has been causing trouble since the moment he got here!" Mail heard Roger exclaim.

"Please calm down Roger, there is no need to get agitated. Just because you and Mello have had your quarrels does not mean he is unable to befriend everyone. I have faith that he and Matt can get along."

"Oh really? And what makes you so sure?"

"Matt seems to be a very adaptable boy, which is unsuprising what with the situation with his parents that he lived with for so long. Mello is only disagreeable when provoked, and seeing as Matt is rather indifferent there would most likely be no cause for disagreement between them."

Matt drew his head back from the door when he heard the word so often used to describe him. He had once looked it up in a dictionary just out of curiosity.

_Indifferent: Adjective: Without interest or concern; not caring; apathetic._

He had grown to loathe that word. It was so inaccurate. He did care. About everything. He cared about learning about the world around him, reading countless books. He had cared about whether his father would come home to beat him or not. He cared and wondered about whether he would ever have a real friend. And most of all, had cared about his empty mother, no matter how far away she had seemed. _Why doesn't anyone see that? Just because I am 'adaptable', just because I can live with things doesn't mean I like them. _And now he cared about whether he would be sharing a room with this daunting Mello character or not. Suddenly his lonely place back in The Quill Orphanage seemed very inviting. He felt he had had enough of bullies, old and young, big and small, for a lifetime.

Matt's back was still resting against the door when it opend, and he just barely stopped himself from tripping backwards into the room. He wobbled on the tips of his feet, spreading out his arms to steady himself. Watari smiled at him and handed him his suitcase and bag, which he had left inside the office.

"Ryuaki is going to take you upstairs to see your new home." Matt swallowed the lump of apprehension rising up in his throat and nodded shakily. He followed L towards the grand stair case at the end of the hall way, past all the openings leading from eitherside of it. He turned back once before setting foot on the first step, waving to Roger and Watari for he was expecting that this would be the last time he would see them for the night.

"Your room is on the second floor down the left hallway," L said the directions as they walked them. "And is the fourth door down, number 49." He finished as he knocked on the door next to the brass plate, which verified the number he said.

Matt held his breath as it swung open, wondering just who would be standing on the other side. He did not get to see however, because the person moved quickly right past him, latching onto L's waist and taking handfuls of the white shirt in small fists. Whoever it was seemed determined to keep him there.

"Ryuzaki! I didn't know you were visiting! How long are you staying? Why-''

"Shh, quiet please Mello. We don't want everyone knowing I'm here and rushing out now, do we?" The other boy nodded and stepped back from L, so Matt was finally able to get a good look at him.

He was taller than Matt and had light blonde hair, with bangs that hung just above his eyes. And those eyes were, in Matt's opinon, the most interesting part of him. The turquoise color burned brightly around the black stones of his pupils and Matt felt that the boy's gaze could burn you alive if he so wished it. When they locked with his own, warm shivers ran up and down his arms, leaving a long trail of goosebumps behind them.

"Whose he?" The quesstion was asked in a deeper, less enthusiastic tone that made Matt have the desire to run back down the stairs and lock himself in the gloomy office. He could see what Roger had meant by the word 'intimidating'.

"Mello, allow me to introduce you to the newest member of Wammy's House. This is Matt, he's the same age as you."

"Hi." Matt greeted shyly, sticking out his hand in offering of a shake. It was not accepted.

"So what's the point of me meeting him?"

"Well Mello, as you know we are a little bit short on rooms at the moment, and you have been on your own in this one for the past two years so I have decided that-''

"No!" Matt winced at the loud shout. "He is not going to stay with me! You promised me the first day I got here that I wouldn't have to share a room! You were the one that sa-''

"Mello," said L sternly. "I believe I have told you before that shouting doesn't get you anywhere. I am sorry to go back on my promise, but I simply must. Besides I think this will be good for you, and for him." L reached down and awkwardly smoothed the boy's hair back. "You know how hard it can be in the first few days." Mello looked down at the carpet on the floor and rubbed his heels on it sheepishly.

"Alright Ryuzaki. I'm sorry. I guess," he glared at Matt. "That'd be okay."

"Thank you. I will rely on you to show him around? I apologize that I am unable to stay here for a visit, but I have a case to work on. But I promise that I'll write to you of course." Mello wrapped his arms around L once more.

"Have you seen my marks, Ryuzaki? They're good aren't they? And I just learned how to speak German, did Watari tell you that? Ich werde dich vermissen." L smiled down at him and ran his hand slowly down the boys arm which made Matt feel like he was witnessing a private moment that he didn't belong in.

"I've heard about it all. You are progressing very well and I'm proud of you for it. Keep up all the hard work. Auf Wiedersehen."

It was then that it occurred to Matt that he was about to be left alone in a shadowy hallway with a boy who quite possibly hated him already.

"Well don't just stand there, idiot," Mello sighed. "Come in." He held the door open for Matt who cautiously went inside. The room was larger then the one back at The Quill Orphanage and the walls were painted a warm lemon colour. There were two dressers on either side of the room and a tall brown bunk bed that stood across from the door in front of a large window that overlooked the Wammy's grounds. Matt stood unsurely in the center of the white carpeted floor. "The top bunk and the dresser to the right are mine, so don't touch them." Matt had already decided that he wouldn't dare. "So you can put your stuff in the right one and sleep on the bottom." He made no move to help Matt carry or unpack anything, but Matt had not expected him to. It was very clear that Mello was unhappy with the situation.

"So, um, do we have school tomorrow?" Mello rolled his eyes as he climbed up to the top of the bed and plopped down on his matress.

"Of course we have school tomorrow. We have school everyday, didn't anyone tell you that?" Matt shook his head no. Noone had told him much of anything schedule wise. "Well we have it everyday in classroom 102, from 8:00am till 4:00pm. And for the classes your with everybody in your age group until you turn twelve, because that's when rankings are assigned."

"Rankings?"

"Nobody mentioned that either? Well when we turn twelve we're all given the order in which we will succeed Ryuzaki. The goal is to become the most intelligent so you can be the highest on the list. And then we all get our own specialized tutors to help us with whatever we're talented in. And I've already decided," He leaned down over the railing of the bed and stared intensely at Matt. "That_ I_ am going to win. I am going to be the first person on that list for sure." Matt believed him.

"So… what happens to the kids that don't win?" Mello swung his feet back and forth between the ladder bars.

"How should I know? I'm not going to be one. Nothing important probably. Maybe they just get regular jobs."

"Well, I guess that wouldn't be so bad. I'm not very smart anyways." Matt sighed, watching as Mello stood up on his bed to pull the string and turn off the few light bulbs that hung from the ceiling. He'd already stealthily slipped into his pajamas without him noticing. Matt pulled his out of the drawer. _Little ships, _he thought, tracing his fingers over the stitched boat pattern. _Lost at sea. Just like me._

"You must be a bit clever, at least. Ryuzaki wouldn't have picked you otherwise." His comment held no compliments.

Matt looked up at Mello who had not moved since turning off the lights. The moonlight that filtered through the window lit up his face, making him appear ghoslty and his eyes glow stronger. A small patch of it fell onto his chest, glinting off rosary beads that Matt had not noticed before and setting the black cross ablaze with white. Mello noticed him staring and wrapped the cross up in a firm fist, protecting it. "Well… I'm going to bed. We have to get up early for breakfast you know, at 7:00. You'd better get up on your own because I won't bother with waking you. And if you snore, or sleeptalk, or anything weird like that, then this pillow," he raised it up threateningly . "Will go over your mouth. Got that?" Matt nodded. Mello burrowed into the blankets, out of sight.

_I suppose this could be a lot worse, _thought Matt, laying down carefully. _I just have to get the hang of things, this strange place. This strange boy. _He felt like the fiery blue orbs were boring into him even though he knew they were locked behind sleepy lids on the bed above him. _They burn continously when he talks, no matter what he's saying. Why is that?_

In the latter years, Matt's fixation with Mello's eyes would grow as he learned more and more words to describe them with. Furious, fervent, passionate. _Loving. _Their flames slowly began to lick their way up and to eat away the wooden shell around Matt's heart until it became softer, ashier, charred. Because for a long time, all Matt was was kindle for an unsatisfiable fire. But don't worry yourself, for Mello will not burn up our boy completley. Because before the end, without either of them realizing it at first, he would become something more.

_So there you have it! I'll try to post a new chapter at least every 20 days, or shorter time length, like I have started to do. Please review, constructive criticism is always lovely :). _


	5. Chapter 5: Pummeled

_So it's been over two years, and I know I'm a horrible person for not updating. I promised myself when staring this story that I would never end up being one of those writer's, but life gets in the way sometimes and there's nothing you can really do about it. So all I'm going to say is that I really am truly sorry about it and I'm going to do my best to keep this ball rolling now. So without further ado, here's my long awaited Chapter Five:_

Matt had gotten used to waking up and not knowing where he was. From being shifted from the hospital to Quill Orphanage, and now Wammy's House he had gotten over the panicked cold sweat feeling of realizing that although the bed is perfectly comfortable, it is not your own, and you are not at home. But this was his home now, by all paperwork technicalities, and he was just going to have to make the best of it. What he was not used to and was not sure how to make the best of however, was being pulled out of bed and dumped onto the hard floor by a shouting fierce tempered blonde haired boy at 7:00 in the morning.

"Wake up dumb ass! Didn't I tell you I didn't want to have to bother getting you up? I'm going to miss breakfast if I have to wait for you, get yourself dressed!" Mello exclaimed with a flushed red face.

Matt stared up at him from the floor dumbfounded, but quickly got to his feet to protect himself from being yelled at any farther. He went to the dresser and pulled out his jeans and black and red stripped t-shirt and didn't bother running his comb through his hair or asking where the bathroom was so he could go brush his teeth due to the way Mello was leaning against the door frame looking like he could explode again any moment. Once he was decent Mello took off down the hall without a word and Matt had to practically sprint down the stairs to keep up with him, terrified that he would lose sight of him and get lost in the gigantic building. He thought they were close to the front entrance way they had came in last night when Mello turned the corner to the dining hall and Matt took it all in with a queasy stomach.

Rows and rows of cafeteria tables, their ends facing his direction, went from one side of the room to the other, filled bench to bench with children and noise. So much noise. Matt had thought a school full of geniuses would be extremely disciplined but apparently not, and aside from the people dishing food in the line on the left side there were no adults visible. His own school and the lunch room at Quill Orphanage had been much smaller than this, and Matt found that when he was placed in a crowd of this size and this volume, he completely forgot how to move and his heart started to hammer in his chest.

"Well come on idiot, there's still plenty of food left if you don't just stand here!"

Matt was almost relieved when Mello grabbed his hand and roughly yanked him towards the line. He grabbed a plate and nodded to every question about what he wanted the women dishing food asked him because he couldn't hear what they said over the din and he was too nervous to ask them to repeat it. He ended up with some slices of apple, eggs, sausage, and a cup of what appeared to be orange juice. The food looked much better than anything he'd had to eat in his life. He was then faced with the new dilemma of where to take a seat to eat in the crowded hall, but followed Mello's lead to the only empty table in the far right corner of the room, a spot he hadn't noticed before over the chains of many heads.

"I always eat here by myself. No one ever takes the table because they're scared I'll beat them up. But I'll make an exception for you because I don't want you to get lost and beaten up and have your blood be on my hands."

Matt could clearly recognize the resentment in Mello's voice for being saddled with the task of showing the new kid around, but he could also already see the odd contradictions in the way that he presented himself to others. Last night he had told him that if he didn't wake up in time for breakfast he would just leave him there, but sure enough this morning he had woke him up and waited for him before leaving. Sure, it had been a rude awakening he performed grumpily, but he hadn't made good on his threat. Maybe his bark was going to worse than his bite.

"But fuck, I'll leave you on your own if you don't quit staring at me you freak! Seriously, what the heck are you looking at?" Mello asked exasperatedly as he reached to the center of the table for the bottle of chocolate syrup there and began to drown the waffles on his plate. Pretty soon Matt couldn't even see the waffles anymore, just a brown puddle. "Man, you got a shitty breakfast too, what's up with that? We only get waffles on Saturday you know and they're the best things in this dump. Here, try some."

Matt was thoroughly surprised when he found a forkful of dripping waffles shoved in his face. He quickly opened his mouth and swallowed the sickly sweet substance and found himself coughing and having to take a huge gulp of his orange juice, tears stinging his eyes. Mello started to laugh loudly with his head thrown back, an expression Matt could previously never imagine on the harsh boys face.

"Hey dummy did you even chew that? You must have liked it with the way you wolfed it down. Chocolate makes everything taste better, but we rarely have it here because they want us to eat "healthy", which is total bullshit because Ryuzaki eats nothing but sugar."

"He does? How do you know that?" Matt asked. His throat felt dry and he realized that it was the first time he had spoken all morning.

"'Cause I spent a weekend with him once and for every meal and snack he ate nothing but candy! Seriously, just sugar cubes and marshmallows and lollipops, that was all. It seems pretty bizarre but it must work for him because he's perfectly healthy and he's the smartest person in the world! When I'm older I want to see if I can eat nothing but chocolate."

It was the first few sentences Mello had spoken to him without uttering an insult. Getting him on the subject of Ryuzaki seemed to be a step in the right direction.

"Wow, he seems like a really busy guy so you must be a pretty important student for him to spend a whole weekend with you." Mello actually beamed at him.

"Yeah well, I think he realizes that I have the biggest shot at being his successor so he wanted to teach me some things I'll need. But I can't tell you what he told me because its top secret information that only the most trusted few can know."

"I understand."

Suddenly a loud school bell rang and all of the students got up to dump their plates in a bucket at the end of the line. Matt followed Mello into the hall and grabbed the back of his shirt so that they weren't separated in the swarms of students making their way to their classes. He was relieved when they finally entered their own which was a small room that was already filled up except for two empty desks at the back of the room that Matt immediately knew must be Mello's, and the other, he realized, for himself. The other children's eyes bored into them as they made their way to their seats.

"What's everybody looking at?!" Mello snapped, and all their heads immediately snapped back around to face the white board at the front of the room. All heads except for one. Matt took in the white mop of curls that sat upon the head of a pale faced, small boy dressed in what appeared to be button up pajamas the same colour as his hair. His eyes were a dark cold grey that made Matt want to shiver, and so he was alarmed when the boy got up and strode to the back of the room with an outstretched hand.

"I was not aware that we were receiving a new student. Welcome, I am Near. And you are?"

Before Matt could grasp Nears hand Mello's came between them and swatted his arm away.

"His name's Matt and there's no reason that you would know that he was coming, you're not the first to be informed on everything around here _Near_." Mello sneered. "And he's my roommate so I'm showing him everything so he doesn't need any of your help, got it?"

"Well that is very nice of you Mello, I am pleased that you have finally made a friend. It is nice to meet you Matt, I look forward to being your classmate." Near said calmly and nodded to him before slowly walking back to his desk.

Despite his calm demeanor, Matt had felt more uncomfortable meeting him than he had meeting Mello the previous night. Something about just how calm he was unsettled him.

"Hey, I never said he was my friend, and what the fuck is that supposed to mean?!" Mello yelled after him, just as a tall Japanese woman with a severe looking black bob came into the room.

"Mello, I would appreciate it if you would refrain from using such language in my classroom. Good morning class."

"Good morning Miss Harada." Maybe this school was going to be more normal than Matt thought.

"Now this morning we are going to be continuing with our languages lesson on conjugating German verbs that we began yesterday. If you would all please get your textbooks from the shelves and turn to page seventy-four."

Matt followed Mello's lead on which book to grab from the many piles on the shelves and flipped open to the page.

"We also have the arrival of a new student today. I am sure you have all already noticed Matt, and if you would all please look after him and help show him around Wammy's. Matt, would you like to start our lesson off by reading us the instructions, from the top of the page please."

Matt looked down at the paper but found that the printed words were nothing but gibberish to him. They weren't in English and he thought that if he tried to say any of them they would come out horribly mispronounced, so as a result of his nervousness he found himself staring at the letters until wetness welled up in his eyes and all the markings swirled together into one big unreadable mess. He started fidgeting with his hands under the desk until he heard the rest of the class start to snicker.

"I uh, I'm sorry but I can't read this Miss H-Harada."

"Why ever not? You can read, can't you?" The class let out another series of giggles. Matt decided that he didn't like this woman.

"Yes I can read, I just never learned any German."

"Oh I see, they must have been studying a different curriculum where you went to school. What languages were you studying?"

"Um, English." The class was in an uproar now.

"Hey shut up you asshole!" Matt heard Mello yell, but he still didn't look up from his own hands. He heard Miss Harada shush him and the rest of the class.

"English and?"

"Only English Miss Harada. Nothing else." Matt's voice cracked on the last word and he knew that if he spoke a single more he would burst into tears.

"Well then. I suppose I have to go speak with Roger in the office about that for a moment. You all better be on your very best behaviour until I return."

When she left the room, a boy sitting a few seats in front of him turned around with a mean grin on his face. Matt had learned to recognize a bully instantly by now, and he knew that he was going to be in for it.

"I guess she's going to have to get you moved to a lower grade, you imbecile. Perhaps with the kindergartners?" The whole class laughed in response, except for Near and Mello, who was now on his feet , stomping over to the boys desk and leaning over him imposingly.

"Hey shut the fuck up Blaire! Not everyone was as privileged as you and went to a private school before mommy and daddy bit the dust."

The rest of the class oohed and ahhed at this and Matt could feel the excitement tingling in the air. He couldn't believe that Mello was sticking up for him, but maybe Mello was always looking to get involved in any sort of trouble.

"Hey, all I'm saying is maybe Ryuzaki made a mistake in picking him, some sort of weird fluke in the test. Ordinary idiots like him don't belong here."

"Ryuzaki never makes any mistakes! Just because he hasn't got the education you did before you came here doesn't mean he's stupid! You're the ignorant fucktwad!"

"Ooh fucktwad, that's a new one. Tell me Mello, I'm very interested in psychology and I think you'd make a perfect test subject. Do you think maybe your use of profanity and rage is meant compensate for something else? Perhaps how much of a coward you truly are? You know, some psychological traits run in families. Was your daddy a coward too, is that why he shot-"

Blaire's nose was crushed under Mello's fist before he could utter another word. His chair scrapped back loudly as he fell to the floor, no other noise to cover the painful thud as the rest of the class had fallen to complete shocked silence. Mello slammed his fist into his face again, and again, sitting on the boy's chest and bashing his head into the floor until his knuckles started to stain with the blood that began to poor from Blaire's nose. Near got up slowly and grabbed Mello's fist, pulling it back to stop him.

"Mello you have to-"Mello immediately began pummeling Near as well as Blaire laid next to them, stunned. One girl at the front of the room screamed, and Matt realized that since he was the reason the fight had broken out he would have to intervene, no matter how much his rapid pulse told him not to. He walked around in front of Mello where the boy could see him approach and wrapped his fingers around the boys shoulders to stop him from pouncing on Near's small form that laid between them. To his surprise Mello leapt over the body and pushed Matt back onto the empty desk, his arms on either side of his head. The fire was back. The hot blue threatening to burn him alive, to burn anyone alive who dared to try and block his path. Mello pulled his bloody fist back and Matt cringed, bracing himself for the impact the punch to his cheek he knew all too well. The blue flames widened with sudden understanding, and Mello stepped back. Then Miss Harada's voice was yelling for Roger, and all four of them were being dragged out of the room by their shirt collars, two in each hand, to his office.


	6. Chapter 6: First Friend

_Woah, another chapter not two and half years later! I'm on a roll XD. Anyways, this chapter is going to feature a scene at a catholic church and I'm going to apologize for any inaccuracies in advance because I'm not catholic or Christian so I'm not familiar on all the goings on in mass. I'm not familiar with anything about Moscow either and had to rely on internet research for both subjects. Sorry about that. Anyways, here is your Chapter Six:_

Okay, so he had been completely and totally wrong about Mello's bark being worse than his bite. The bite was worse, much much worse. He had viewed and received countless brutal beatings the past few years of his childhood on the daily, but never committed by someone his own age. He didn't even realize kids could do something like that! Mello had pummeled Blaire and Nears faces to a bloody pulp, and had come very close to doing the same to his own. He had felt the same fear in his gut whenever his father had raised his hand to strike him, had saw the same anger taking over the fires of Mello's eyes and then suddenly fading away with no warning at all. It was astonishing how fast it had all came and went.

He found that his head was still spinning when he slumped into the chair in Roger's office along with the other three, and they each had to go over their part of the story. When he finally managed to speak he backed Mello up along with Near that Blaire had most definitely verbally provoked the attack, and kept silent when Near added that he was only trying to break up the fight before he had also been turned on. He didn't want to make Mello any angrier with him than he might be already. Roger was exasperated but unsurprised and Matt wondered how often incidents like this happened and if they were all really caused by Mello, if the reason all the children were scared of him wasn't just his tough aura and language but the physical proof he had to verify them. Roger sent Near and Blaire off with Miss Harada to be treated at the nurse's office and then addressed Matt and Mello with a grim and tired face.

"Mello, you've committed a very terrible temper tantrum of violence today and I hope that you reflect upon it and regret it. How can you ever expect to become successor to Ryuzaki if you can't keep your composure in the face of a few simple taunts?"

"But Roger, he said that-" Mello started to protest.

"I really don't care what he said, you cannot let him provoke you! And now you're going to have to pay the price. After you go to Mass tomorrow, I want you to report to the dining hall instead of your class and wash all the dishes by hand. And Matt, I would like it if you would help and keep an eye on him."

"Oh Matt didn't do anything Roger, you know that! And I'll fall behind if you take me out of class!" Mello exclaimed.

"I am not trying to punish Matt, but I think it would benefit you to be accompanied and try to cooperate with one of your peers. Besides, I need to find out whether he'll be able to stay in your classroom, a classroom you don't deserve to learn in young man if you're going to endanger the other students! Now, I'd like for you both to spend the remainder of the day conducting your studies in the library, and Mello first thing tomorrow I want two written apologises to both Near and Blaire. And before you ask, yes I will have Blaire write you an apology as well. Now both of you, out of my office." Roger sighed, one hand rubbing his temple and the other raised and waving them out the door.

Matt wasn't sure what to say to Mello once they were alone in the hallway.

"You better not be scared of me like everyone else now. Because I don't want to be your roommate if you're going to be cowering away from me all the time, that will get annoying." Mello groaned, as if that was the worst thing that had come from all of this.

Matt nodded, but didn't say anything as they walked toward the library, because he _was _scared of Mello now, as much as he didn't want to be.

"I did it for you, you know. I didn't want to watch you just sit there and let him make fun of you. You have to learn to stand up for yourself or assholes like that will walk all over you! Hey, say something would you!"

Mello grabbed his shoulder and Matt froze. He quickly dropped his hand.

"Look, I didn't want to hit you, sometimes I might go a little berserk and I don't know what I'm doing okay, but I wasn't actually going to hit you! So don't be scared of me okay? I'm not going to do whatever they did to you."

Matt stopped walking dead in his tracks. Mello bit his lip and started to clink the beads of his rosary together.

"A lot of people around here have fucked up pasts; it's how most of us became orphans in the first place right? So I understand if something really awful happened to you, but you can let it go now. You don't have to worry about them anymore because I'll look out for you now; we'll say it's calling it even for freaking you out on your first day here."

Matt didn't realize he was crying until he felt the warm liquid pouring down his cheeks. Mello's face turned red when he saw them.

"But I'm not dealing with any of that crap, so you can save that for the school therapist okay?! I'm not even kidding; we actually have one of those, so you can go crying to him and not to me. Look let's just go to the library okay, I'll help you do some studying so you can get caught up with the class."

He reached his arm out towards Matt once again and Matt used the front of his shirt to wipe up his face before he took it and let the boy lead him around the building. He had cried more in front of people these past few weeks than he had in years and he could physically feel the walls he had been taught to build his whole life to keep all emotions curled up tightly on the inside rather than pouring outside for all to see breaking, torn apart by Mello's expressive displays of both anger and kindness. He could tell Mello wanted to appear like he didn't give a care in the world about what anyone thought or felt about him, but he tried so hard to carry this air that it obviously became the opposite. Without having to say anything, Matt could read all of his actions like a book. He knew that for the first time in his life he was beginning to understand someone. For the first time he had an ally. A real friend.  
>_<p>

The next day when Mello shook him awake there was no light at all pouring in through the window, only the dark blue quiet of pre-dawn. They had taken their lunch and dinner in their room last night because Roger later informed them that Mello would be forbidden from dining with the other students until he fulfilled his punishment. They had sat in the library all day with Mello reading him passages of non-fiction works in all subjects for the entirety, refusing to start writing the apology letters that Matt imagined would never be completed unless by force, until they had both dozed off into an evening nap, heads falling onto each other's shoulders as their bodies slipped down their bean bag chairs. Matt had gotten more sleep than he had for as far back as he could remember, and for the first time it was no longer plagued by twisted fitful dreams. So he wasn't tired due to the early wake up call, just thoroughly confused, especially when Mello instructed him to dress in his nicest clothes. Matt didn't know if he had any nice clothes aside from the suit from his parent's funeral, which he never wanted to have to wear again.

"Why?" he asked. "Where are we going?"

"To Mass of course, it's Sunday! Don't you remember Roger mentioning it yesterday?"

"Sort of. But what is it?"

Mello stared at him with widening eyes and a hanging open mouth, looking like Matt had just struck him across the face.

"It's Mass dumbass! We're obviously going to church so our souls aren't eternally damned to Hell!"

Matt was confounded. He had only ever heard church called church, and sure Mello wore a rosary but he had assumed it was something of sentimental rather than religious value to him. Matt had met religious people before when they came to the door when his parents were away so his father wasn't there to scream at them that they "didn't want to take any of their Jesus bullshit" and to "get of my damn property before I shoot you!" and Mello didn't strike him at all as the type.

They had been super friendly for one thing, but not in a way that Matt liked. There was an underlying condescension, a 'we are so much better and more enlightened than you' manner to their gentleness that made all of it seem fake as can be to him. And he didn't like what they said about hell either, that if he would just get his parents to take him to this building one day a week and pray for his sins (and Matt couldn't even figure out what his sins were) that he would be saved and go to heaven. He wanted to go to heaven so he could be with his mother, he really did, but he didn't think that seemed like a legitimate way to get there. If it was then his mother wouldn't be in heaven at all, and he couldn't bear to think of her spending eternity anywhere else.

And then there was the God matter. God was supposed to watch over children because children were innocent. He was supposed to love and protect them when the love and protection in their life was lacking. But in spite of these promises, Matt had never been protected. He had never been spared any of his bruises, cuts, and loneliness inflicted by his father; he endured it all with no salvation in sight and if the car accident hadn't happened and he hadn't gone to the hospital, then maybe he and his mother would have eventually died by his father's hand. Wasn't that proof that no matter how hard you prayed no holy force was going to swoop in and save you? That you had to do the saving yourself or nothing would ever change?

Still, no matter what his own opinions were he didn't want to let Mello down by refusing to go with him if this was something he believed strongly in. He didn't recall having ever been in a church but he didn't see how it could do him any harm. He could at least give it a shot.

"I've actually never been to church or Mass before. But I'll go with you anyways if that's allowed."

"You've never been to church?! Well… I guess it's not really surprising but it's just fucking disgraceful. I'm the only one at Wammy's who goes, Roger takes me. We can all go to whatever religious services we like but nobody else ever does, because everybody here thinks they're too smart to believe in anything but their own brains. Me, my par… we're catholic. I've been going to church since I was born."

Mello didn't look right when he wasn't wearing black. The white dress shirt he buttoned up made his blue eyes look even more electric, like they were going to burn right out of his head. Matt pulled on a maroon sweater he had packed and decided that it would have to be good enough.

"My parents were atheists I think, if it's okay for me to go still." Matt supplied as he followed Mello to the front hall where Roger was waiting, looking tired as usual and holding three black umbrellas's to shield them from the light drizzle morning outside.

"Of course it is! Better late than never, and I'll probably get double points for helping save your soul."

Roger shook his head when he caught this snippet of the conversation.

"I really don't think that's the way it works Mello."

The church was enormous, towering over the green lawn with its black steeples, the crosses topping the two of them and the center peak looming in the air ominously. The congregation filing through the doors was almost entirely composed of elderly people and Matt was alarmed when Roger motioned for them to go in on their own as he was going to take a walk and wait for them outside. The air inside was warm and woody, a scent that made Matt think of the pages of old books as Mello chose a pew for them to sit in at the front of the room and handed Matt the bright red bible. Their legs hung off the edge of the bench and swung back and forth without grazing the floor and Matt watched the gold coloured light filter through the large stained glass windows to their left. Matt had never seen anything as beautiful as the sun hitting the brilliantly tinted scenes in his life, but he didn't look directly at the faces of the saints because their expressions were so melancholy that it made his stomach hurt.

Matt was shocked that Mello could sit still through the entire service because he found himself wanting to get up and run out the doors. His feet were falling asleep and his back was aching and he couldn't follow what the pastor was talking about, but Mello seemed enthralled with every word. During one of the prayers almost everyone kneeled on the floor but Mello pushed him back to remain seated. People shook his hand and told him "peace be with you", and later on everyone went up to the front and (Mello told him to remain where he was when he went) ate a small perfect circle of white bread and drank from a silver wine glass. Matt didn't have a clue what the reasons behind any of this were, but it was interesting to watch Mello being so engaged and respectful. His voice rang out louder and higher pitched than Matt would have imagined during the hymns, and he was oddly quiet on the walk back to Wammy's. He even slipped his hand into Matt's when they crossed busy streets with Roger, it burned warm and soft in his palm. He may not be a fan of Mass, but he liked the effect that it had on Mello.

Roger left them in the dining hall just as he had threatened. Mello started on the dishes, but held up his hands when Matt also reached for the yellow rubber gloves.

"Hey, I can do this part on my own. What I want is for you to write the apology to Blaire and Near, seeing as I picked the fight on your behalf. I'll be damned before I ever actually apologize to that white haired pig."

"Why do you hate him so much?" Matt asked, taking the neatly folded square of stationary Mello had pulled out of his pocket and sitting down opposite the sink.

"He just thinks he's so much fucking better than everybody else, thinks he's smarter than me just because he scored highest on Ryuzaki's test! It was only 1 percent but I swear he's going to try and hold that shit over my head the rest of his life. There's more to being a successor than just intelligence. You've got to have unbreakable determination, and I do. Besides, Ryuzaki likes me better I can tell!"

Mello scrubbed aggressively at the dishes, so hard that Matt was worried that one of them was going to crack.

"How do you figure? Isn't he not supposed to play favourites?"

"He doesn't of course because he's Ryuzaki and he can't, but I'm really good at reading people, even him. It's just a feeling I have! Besides, he's spent more time with me than anybody else here." Mello replied defensively.

"So you're the one who scored second highest?"

"Yeah I scored _second _highest, what's it fucking to you?"

"Well, I was just wondering because... well I scored third."

The blue flames of Mello's eyes flickered brighter and he dropped a fork that clattered to the bottom of the sink as soapy suds splashed upwards.

"Why didn't you say that before? DAMN IT!" Mello slammed his fists down on either side of the sink.

"What's wrong with that?" Matt asked, putting down his pencil and looking up at Mello's flushed face with alarm.

"'What's wrong with that?' What's fucking wrong with it is that I finally thought I had... you know I thought I had got what I had been praying for. I just wanted you know like... everyone has at least one person, that's natural, it's normal for me to want one person... I'm not weak for wanting someone to talk to okay?! But everyone around here is so fucking annoying, they assume they know everything because they think they're the smartest they can get, it's like talking to robots, snide robots like Near! And then you come along and... you don't annoy me as much. And you seem to have some feelings, even though you kind of act like a doormat when people are mean to you which is stupid, but you know you cry and you ask questions, and I _kind of_ don't mind you. You're not as fucking indifferent as everybody else is around here when it comes to things outside of intelligence tests and whatnot. But now it's ruined, whatever I thought, because it turns out your my competition." Mello finished, slightly out of breath and turned away from Matt, his shoulders crossed.

"Mello it, it doesn't have to be like that. Just because I scored third highest-"

"No it does have to be like that, because we both have to do our best to become Ryuzaki's next successor and... That's all I strive for so I can't be, you're... I just can't if it's possible that you'll be the one to take that away from me."

"No Mello listen. I don't know what I want okay? I just got here and I haven't figured that out yet, but I'm not that ambitious or determined so I know that I could never be successor to Ryuzaki and even if I could, don't take this the wrong way or anything, I wouldn't want to! His job seems pretty dangerous and I just kind of want to live I guess. And I've never had a friend in my life and I kind of don't mind you either so..."

"You... you really don't want to be successor?"

"Not at all."

"Well... you're a real idiot then because that's the only reason you should be here, you're definitely fucking jeopardizing the academic integrity of this institution or whatever by not trying to do your best but I guess that it's too late to send you back to America because you know too much, so I guess you can stay here and... Be my friend or whatever."

Mello was grimacing when he squeezed out the words but Matt was positively beaming.

"How did you know I was from America?"

"From your accent, stupid! But none of us are supposed to know where the others from because it could lead to identities being given away later on."

"You have an American accent too."

"No I don't! I've just lost my accent because I speak so many languages."

"How many?" Matt asked amazedly.

"5. Near speaks 7 but I'm going to finish learning German and Mandarin, and then maybe Cantonese so I'll be ahead."

"What's your first then?"

"I'm not supposed to tell you but I guess I can just to make things fair because I know where you're from. It's Russian. It would be really hard for you to learn because we have a different alphabet than you."

"What's it like in Russia?" He didn't think Mello would ever talk this much about himself and he wanted to see how far he could get, how much he could unravel about his first friend and why he acted like he did.

"I don't remember a whole lot honestly. We lived in Moscow, inside the garden ring which is the inner city. It's the capital city so you've probably heard of it. The winter is freezing and harsh and the summer is really short and hot. It was super crowded all the time and the traffic's terrible. A lot of the buildings are colourful and ornate but others are grey and ugly, it's a big mix. I'd like to go back when I'm older if I can... It's an expensive place to live but my parents left a lot of money. I came here when I was 4."

"What happened?"

"...You have to tell me yours first. I'm not sharing my secrets if you don't share yours."

Matt hadn't talked about this with anyone, not since he had with the social worker which was uncomfortable and upsetting. But with Mello it was easier to let it come falling out.

"My dad... wasn't a good person at all. He got out of prison when I was 4 and he started to beat me and my mom, but she never did anything about it because she was too drunk and empty to care. They were both drunk and high all of the time. They died in a car accident because he was driving drunk. But I was already in the hospital when that happened, because I fell and cut my wrist on broken glass, from the bottles they left around." He didn't think he would be able to ever get the story out without crying, but something about staring into Mello's eyes made him feel stronger, like the past couldn't hurt him anymore. He could be whoever he wanted now.

"That's really shitty, but it's not uncommon. A lot of people here went through the same stuff. Mine's similar. My father was involved in a lot of organized crime, higher up. He made a lot of money by getting other people out of the way. He was a murderer, but half the time he was a gentle father and husband. He gave me and my mother the best, anything we could ever want. But it was like he had a split personality. The other half of the time he was cold and fierce and showed us the same face and treatment that he must have showed his brotherhood. And my mother never said anything about those episodes after they were over. She just cleaned herself up and went on writing poetry and singing. She had beautiful calligraphy and a more beautiful voice, but she didn't have to do it for money. She wasn't allowed to work, he wouldn't let her lift a finger, just indulge her hobbies and entertain his friends. He liked to show her off, she was gorgeous. But she was really smart, smarter than him and I think he resented that. He just wanted a pretty doll. Fuck. You can never tell anyone any of that. I can't believe I'm dumb enough to tell you any of this, if you tell anyone I'll kill you."

Matt believed him. And he didn't mention the fact that Mello didn't actually answer the question, didn't actually tell him what had happened to his parents, how they had died. He knew this was as far as he could get today, maybe as far as he ever would. But that was okay with him. He felt like he could understand Mello even if he never fully opened up, he could tell this was a great feat for him, and it was for him as well. Having a friend seemed complicated, but it made him feel the most at home, the most safe he had ever felt since his father's return. No matter what he told Mello, no matter how much certain things hurt to say out loud, he felt like it was worth saying them to have someone understand him this way, to stay and be his friend regardless. To stay and by staying, say _I accept you, I like you and no matter what you do, I'll be here. _That was where he thought home should be, with the people who you can feel that with. In such a short amount of time, he had found his home, in the warmth of the blue fires of Mello's eyes, in his harsh looks and his loud voice, so expressive and passionate and inviting Matt in while pushing everyone else away. And Matt was in, caught up in Mello and there to stay, he began to follow him wherever he would go.


	7. Chapter 7: Bad Habits

_Dude, I'm actually like cranking these things out even though I should be working on school work, but I'll get to it. My productivity is really screwed up. Anyways warnings for this chapter there is mentions of bulimia and smoking cigarettes, both of which are extremely unhealthy things which I do not condone but I do see as being part of Matt and Mello's character flaws. But the descriptions are not very graphic so I think most people should be alright, so without any more rambling here is Chapter 7:_

Matt knew that Mello was going to forget about his 12th birthday, February the 1st, because it was the same day that The List was going to be published. For once hardly any work was completed in the classrooms the day before, because everyone at Wammy's had it on their mind, the final results of what their whole lives up to this point had been working towards, their rankings and what their specialized areas would be. The only one who was acting exactly the same as always was Near, writing diligently away at his desk causing Mello to fume and glare at him more than ever.

Matt wouldn't hold it against his best friend. They had always celebrated their birthdays together as any other normal day, hanging out in their room or outside playing soccer in the field outside, rough matches that always ended with Mello wrestling him into the mud and Roger having to come outside and pull them a part, the pair of them still laughing even as they wiped up their bloody noses. They had never bothered to get each other presents because they didn't have any money before, but when you turned 11 at Wammy's you were given a small allowance and time to roam the small city, supervised of course, each weekend because they were almost adults, a year before The List would be published and would have to know how to handle money. That past December Matt had surprised Mello by wrapping silver cross dangling from a band of leather around his wrist.

"I know it's simple, but you have your mother's rosary, something of hers to protect you. So I thought you should have something from me to."

Mello almost looked like he was going to cry but he didn't. He punched Matt in the shoulder and complained that he shouldn't have spent his money on him, but just like the rosary he never took off the cross.

Mello was clutching that rosary all the time now, saying his prayers before bed every night yet still tossing and turning. Matt now pretended that he never heard him getting up to climb down the rungs of the top bunk to go to the bathroom across the hall, throwing up what little dinner he had ate. Matt had only followed him the third time, padding quietly across the cold tile and pulling his friends chin length blond hair away from his face. Mello had pushed him away and sworn at him to get out and Matt got the message. He didn't want what was happening to him, what the approaching knowledge of The List doing to him was acknowledged. He just wanted to carry on as if he was completely fine.

But that all changed the night proceeding The List's arrival. Matt expected to hear Mello thump to the floor and go quickly past his bed and into the hallway, but instead he felt the corner of his mattress sink with weight and the thick blanket being pulled back from being clutched to chest, his arms hit with the cold air before a warm body replaced it, crammed against his on the twin bed that wasn't meant to be shared. He could feel Mello shaking, his fingers digging into Matt's collar bone and it felt like he was trying to bury himself in Matt's skin. Hot tears met his shoulder, rolling off from Mello's burning cheeks.

"Mello what-"

"I... Look I'm sorry I know this is really fucking weird but. I just can't sleep and I had a nightmare and if you want me to get out I get it but..."

"No it's fine!" Matt's heart was hammering in his chest and he wondered if Mello could hear it. "What was the nightmare about?"

"It was a long dream... my father was there... blowing his brains out as usual. I never actually saw it happen, just the body afterwards so I don't know why my brain keeps re-enacting it. But then the blood, it formed this red number two over my chest and I couldn't scrape it off, and I knew everyone would know when they looked at me, that I'm only second best." He choked, his lips wet and whispering the words against Matt's skin.

He knew that this was sleep deprived, stress ridden Mello, and that this much would never come pouring out from him under normal circumstances, that he would have to pretend it never had in the morning. It was a part of being Mello's best friend, listening and talking and diving deep into each other one minute and then covering in all up again the next, barely scratching the surface, the hardness and softness coming in and out of play when Matt least expected it. He just had to roll along with it or be flattened and shut out forever in its wake. Juggling Mello's moods was as dangerous as juggling swords, any moment he could be cut open and could bleed out.

"It doesn't matter Mello, whatever's on that list tomorrow it doesn't say anything about who you are or what your worth. You'll still be who you are and as intelligent as you are and I'll still be here.

"It does matter! Don't you see, if I'm second best then that's going to define who I am the rest of my fucking life, Near's always going to be standing over me! I couldn't stand being subordinate to him and my life won't be worth anything because being L's successor is all I want and all I'm good for. There is no consolation prize on this one."

"Your placing way too much on this. I know how badly you want to succeed L but that isn't the only thing to life. You have so much talent and there's so much good in the world you can do with it, you just have to see past this. Even if Near's first it doesn't make him better than you."

"But if Near's first than that means L believes in him more than me."

"It doesn't matter what L believes. You have to believe in yourself. I believe in you! Doesn't that count for something?"

"It does fucking matter! He's never wrong, so if he places Near first then it means he is better than me. And you don't fucking get it at all because you don't want anything, you don't understand how bad I need this because you've never wanted anything in your life, you don't care about anything!"

"I care about _you._"

Mello doesn't have comeback for this, it shuts him right up completely. His body stops shaking and his racking breathing slows down and deepens, falling into sleep in Matt's arms. Matt lies awake, staring at the mattress above and absentmindedly running his fingers up and down Mello's back and through his hair. He knows for a fact that Mello cares about him too, even if he refuses to admit it out loud, but he doesn't know if it's as strong as the way he feels because in a way Mello's right. He doesn't care about anything else in his life. He loves to learn, to read, and to explore the world of gadgets and technology but at the end of the day nothing captures his attention like the boy in his bed. Nothing matters more. It all comes back to him.

_

Mello has already left without him when Matt wakes up, the sheets still warm where his body used to be. No one goes to breakfast that morning. Their all crowded outside Roger's office when Matt descends the stairs, waiting for him to come post The List L sent in with Watari the previous night on the bulletin board, the one all of them had been on strict orders not to sneak down and try and take a peek at before it was time to look at it. Mello has dark circles under heavy lidded eyes that struggle to stay open, but it hasn't stopped him from elbowing his way to the front of the crowd of children. Near's up there as well and Mello seems to be refusing to look in his direction. Matt squeezes his way to stand by his best friend's side, but Mello isn't looking at him either, his eyes are fixed to the office door.

When Roger finally comes out, the crowd falls from chatter into tense silence. The List is surely there inside that white envelope, the one he shields against his chest as he shuffles to the board looking exhausted and grim as ever. He pulls it out in the dead quiet, the papers rustling together as he pins them down and takes a step back, fixing them with a stern glare before allowing them all to surge forward.

Matt sees it before Mello does and turns away from whatever happens next. The order hasn't changed since Ryuzaki's original test. There's Near's name at the top of the page, followed by Mello's and then, always to his shock, his own. He is concerned when there is no loud swearing that he expects from Mello and turns back to realize that his friend is gone with no trace in sight. He approaches Near reluctantly, but the boy doesn't have any triumphant air about him, only a listless, almost melancholy expression in his dark eyes. A finger twirls a lock of his white hair.

"He ran outside as soon as he saw, I believe you'll find him where the two of you usually play. Good luck."

Matt spun on his heels and sprinted out into the yard, afraid that Mello had gone further than the soccer field and had fled the grounds completely, but sure enough, as usual Near was right. His best friend was there, violently, slamming soccer ball after soccer ball into the net. His foot slipped out underneath him with the sheer amount of force of one of his kicks and he lays flat on his back in the snow, unmoving. Matt doesn't touch him, just plops down next to him, waiting for him to speak.

He doesn't. The butt of Matt's jeans is wet and his arms are numb and pink with cold and he imagines that Mello's skin touching the snow is much worse, and he draws the line as the sun moves higher into the sky, and reaches out to shake Mello's shoulder.

"Come on Mello, let's go inside. You're going to get sick if you keep lying there without a coat like that."

Mello makes no response but doesn't resist Matt pulling him to his feet and leading him back inside Wammy's, upstairs to their room instead of to class which he knows they will be unfit to attend today. Mello slumps down on Matt's bed as Matt wraps a blanket around his shoulders, shaking some snow out of his hair.

"Your present is in my dresser, if you don't mind getting it. Happy birthday." He finally whispers, his voice quiet and raspy. Matt does what he says and finds a small rectangle wrapped up in red tissue paper. He tears it open carefully.

"Mello thank you... Jesus this must have been expensive." The Nintendo DS is sliver and glints in the mid afternoon light in his hands.

"Hey, don't take the son of God's name in vain. And it wasn't so bad, second hand but it works perfectly well and it came with the games. I knew you wanted one the way you were drooling over the ones we saw in the city, and you put up with so much shit with me, you deserve it."

"It's too much man. I'm so sorry Mello, about The List... I wish there was something I could do-"

"There's nothing either of us can do but its okay. I accept what I have to do now. I just have to have to push myself harder than ever to prove to L that I'm not second best to Near, that this may be the only mistake he's ever made in his life but that it is a mistake!"

"Oh Mello I don't know if that's-"

"It's a good idea! It's my only fucking idea; you know that I can't live like this knowing he thinks I'm less than him. I'm going to show everybody that it's true, that I'm meant to be L's successor! Nobody can stop me, not even you!"

"I'm not going to try and stop you, and I don't think L thinks you're any less than Near. We all know that you're just as smart as he is, it's just that you're different people and Near's more well..."

"What?! What is he more than me?!"

"He's just, he doesn't care as much as you. He's meticulous, like a machine he just needs to solve every puzzle because that's what he was made for. And maybe L thinks that it would be easier for him that way, since he'll be able to lead the lonely life that his job requires with no attachments. Maybe L cares about you too much to sign you up for that Mello."

"Cares about me?! He doesn't give a damn about me, today proved that. He knew exactly what this would do to me and he doesn't even show his face here to clean up the aftermath of his decision because he can't spare any of his time to deal with that. He barely even writes to me anymore and the last time he visited was over two years ago. I can hardly remember what he looks like."

"He has to keep his distance sometime Mell, you know that's a part of his job. He's always on the move and having to stay hidden and unattached, and that's just what I'm saying, maybe he doesn't want that kind of life for you, knows it's not the right one."

"Don't you dare fucking tell me what's the right kind of life for me, you don't have any idea of what I want!"

"Well I wouldn't be able to come along if you were the next L, how would you fucking feel then?"

"That's... that's not true L has people who work with him, people like Watari. He's not completely alone, I wouldn't have to split off from you."

"Well in that case, maybe you and Near could work together." Matt knows it's a mistake as soon as the words leave his mouth, and he can't figure out why they slipped through his judgement.

"I would never fucking work with Near, not even for L! I'm not fucking compromising for this, it's all or nothing."

"Okay Mells, okay..."

Matt watches Mello slowly drift to sleep on his bed, clearly overtired and sick as every once in awhile he coughs or sneezes in his sleep. Matt sits on the edge of the mattress and games for hours, he never tires of being sucked up completely into the animated world's but every once in awhile he puts the DS down and looks at Mello, as if checking to see that he's still there. He wonders what's going to happen to him now, what sort of effect today is going to have on him and for how long? It only takes the next week to figure it out, that it's going to be a long time, possibly forever.

Matt's speciality is technology, his time in the classroom is spent with the expensive computers and tracking devices that Wammy's houses, and he could spend forever working with them but he misses having class with his best friend, whose still in a wide range of studies, all of the ones you need to be the greatest detective in the world, languages and geography and chemistry and criminology and so forth. His classes are all the same as Near's but with a different tutor, and every few months he demands Near to tell him what his marks are, and Near calmly answers and Mello goes into the yard to quick soccer balls. Matt watches from their bedroom window because it's time that Mello demands to be left alone for.

But he spends the rest of his time with Matt. The top bunk seems like it's never going to be put to use again as Mello doesn't even make the pretense of climbing up only to come back down in the middle of the night, just slips into bed before Matt does and hogs all of the blankets. He gets tangled up in them when he wakes up thrashing in his sleep from nightmares, the vivid kind that Matt doesn't seem to have anymore even though even though his tragedies were much less long ago. They stopped the night Mello started sleeping fitfully next to him, but he's still woken up when he pulls his friend out from the web of fabric to allow him to cry against his chest or slip out of the bed to leave to be sick.

Mello's throwing up constantly now but won't go to the school nurse. His throat gets sore and his voice is raspy, and there's red around his blue pupils. He eats but he can't seem to hold anything down except for chocolate, which Matt starts to save up his allowances for to buy in bulk despite Mello's protesting. It seems to help and soon there's only the crying, but Mello's still underweight and lanky as he doesn't eat anything else but vitamins which he chokingly dry swallows down. Matt covers for him but feels guilty doing it, eating most of the food off Mello's plate even though he's not hungry for it. They comfort each other while feeding each other's bad habits all the while.

It's Mello's idea to steal the cigarettes. Both their parents used to smoke and the smell of it coated their houses before they came to Wammy's. They just wanted to know what it felt like, promised each other that it would just be once. They'd get in trouble if Roger knew they were buying them and he checks everybody's receipts, has already warned them that they could get diabetes from the amount of chocolate they go through but hasn't done anything about it for fear of Mello giving him more trouble, but they know that he won't tolerate this.

Matt wants the Marlboros because he likes the red package but Mello orders him to distract the man at the convenience store register while he slips the sobranie black Russians and gold lighter into the waist band of his jeans.

"They're the most expensive ones, Matty. What's the fucking point in stealing something if you're going to get something cheap?"

Matt knows it's also because their Russian cigarettes and wonders if it's the same brand that Mello's father smoked, but doesn't dare ask. When they get back to their room they open the window and lean out to the breath in the summer evening air before promptly choking on the smoke that's caught and burning their throats. It feels like its weighing down Matt's lungs as his head gets light and tingly and he can feel his muscles relaxing and he gets it, he gets that despite his full knowledge and the package proclaiming of how smoking kills and causes lung cancer that people will still chase this feeling, that he's going to chase this feeling and its going to kill him if something else doesn't, and the pleasant burning around his ribcage let's him know that he doesn't care. Mello doesn't seem to be sharing his high, he stubs out the lit end by grinding it into the brick and swears while violently coughing. He leans his torso outside of the window and spits.

"That shit is fucking foul, ugh! My head feels horrible. Damn it Matt why are you taking another drag of that shit, give it here!" Mello snatches the cigarette out of Matt's hand and puts it out as well, glaring at the pack that he tosses up onto the roof of Wammy's, hopefully where nobody would ever find it.

"Mello!" Matt protests but is silenced with a fiery glare.

"Don't tell me you're hooked on that, fuck it was bloody disgusting."

"Well... it felt alright. You were the one who wanted to try them!"

"Well I can make dumb decisions too sometimes alright? But it was a one time thing I fucking swear if I catch you smoking I'll kick your ass and kill you so you won't need the lung cancer to do it for you, you got that? It was a onetime thing and it's over."

Matt does got that, knows that Mello will make good on his threat, but his head is still pleasantly humming and he knows that if he could guarantee that he could swipe another pack without Mello's help that he would. He doesn't see why it's any worse than Mello's vomiting or his chocolate only diet doesn't see how it could ruin his body any more. And so what if it does? Mello's right in one thing, no Wammy's kids know what to do with themselves if they aren't chosen to be L's successor. They've been taught nothing else and they feel lost without that goal. So what's so wrong with burning up those lost feelings a little, puffing them out or throwing them up or whatever else to stop feeling so empty inside, to replace those painful feelings with physical painful sensations? Could anybody really tell them they were wrong for the ways they chose to survive that? Matt didn't think they could and he didn't care what anybody thought. Except for Mello, the respect of his best friend was never worth justifying. For now, he would just have to find another bad habit to wallow in.


	8. Chapter 8: Fooling Around

_Woah, this chapter contains the very first snippet of things getting physical between Matt and Mello, I hope that you can all handle that. Also if anyone's still reading this, please review I'd really like some feed back because it's been such a long time. Anyways, here is your Chapter 8: _

Every Wammy's kid knows that they will never be exactly normal teenagers. They'll never have fights with parents or siblings or have to worry about getting bad grades and the stress of choosing a college, a university, a major, and a career. Their peer pressure equates to the competition to be the best in their speciality, the smartest and the most driven. But in other ways, Wammy's teenagers are exactly like any other on the planet.

Roger does not want to provide health class curriculum outside of biology, which pertains more to DNA and forensics as it is, but at some point you're going to have to talk to kids about the messiness of puberty and sex and what not regardless of whether their all geniuses and might already have way too much knowledge on the subject. And that's how Matt ends up back in his old classroom with all of his peers again, at the age of 14 two years after he's been freed to do his own thing, sitting next to Mello in their old seats and watching him smirk as Roger fumbles at the front of the room to draw labelled diagrams of genitalia on the whiteboard.

"That is the fucking saddest looking penis I have ever seen, I wonder what Roger is using as a reference." He mouths to Matt, who has to press his fingers over his mouth to resist breaking down into laughter, because surprisingly no one else is giggling. Everyone else is pretending to be much too mature for that, despite the uncomfortable looks on half of their faces.

Roger sternly tells them that although he doesn't approve of teenagers having sex at this age, he knows better than to assume that none of them will experiment and wants them to be prepared. Matt is dumbfounded by this assumption. Most students at Wammy's feel too jealous and threatened by each other's intelligence to make friends with anyone outside of a few smaller social circles based on mutual interest, let alone have sex with each other. He also thinks that, aside from the population of Wammy's teenagers who are probably asexual, that most of them think they are above sex completely and have better uses for their time. But Roger continues his flushed and rapid rant on how to properly use male and female condoms and fill out forms requesting birth control from the school nurse, and Mello is openly viciously grinning at his discomfort now as everyone else retreats further and further into their shells.

Matt is proven wrong about the interest in sex among his peers a few days later when all anyone can talk about at breakfast is how Blaire was caught sneaking into Linda's room last night and now boys are banned from being in the girl's side of the dorms. A lot of the boys start saying how Linda is an "easy" type of girl, and although Mello hates Blaire with a passion almost as strong as his hate for Near, he 'doesn't mind' Linda, as he's said to Matt. He doesn't mind her because she's shy and quiet and doesn't fucking stick her nose where it doesn't belong, and even let her sit on the library floor in front of them last month and sketch his portrait without complaint. Mello ends up getting up from his and Matt's table and storming to the one across to give one of the kids a bloody nose, and that's how he ends up with another strike on Roger's list and another shift washing dishes.

Mello's probably washed more plates this year than any other, it seems the older they get the easy it is it get the flames of his eyes to engulf his whole body and spark an outburst in its wake, one that Matt either tries to prevent and gets caught in the crossfire of punishment or completely misses because it happens so fast he doesn't see it coming. Like Mello his hands are rough with sores and calluses from spending too much time submerged in the soapy suds, matching scars for brothers in the same battle, allies surviving adolescence in Wammy's together where friendly faces are hard to come by.

Mello arrives late in their bedroom that night; Matt has already gone to bed, but he wakes up as he hears the dresser drawers being pulled open in the darkness.

"I threw a plate at fucking Near because he offered to help me. He was being a condescending little shit! And then Roger fucking made me wash all the tables and stack the benches to do the floors as well, the stone cold bastard! He's got it out to get me."

Matt should have known that other Wammy's teenagers were interested in sex because of his own interest, but he thought he was the only one. Maybe because he wasn't as ambitious and wasn't as focused on his studies as the rest, he found his mind wandering to other places. Places with Mello.

Mello's eyes burned his skin alive ever time he looked at them, and the flames of his best friend's skin at night only made it worse. It used to be a pleasant warm sensation to know that Mello was lying next to him at night but lately he found it kept him up, unfulfilled and relying on fantasies to fill up those needy places in his brain, the ones that imagined what it would be like to do more than just sleep next to Mello. To press his lips against that well defined colour bone, to press them to his mouth even. Matt found himself thinking about it all the time, totally fixated on it and he knew he would be until he did know what it actually felt like, but it would be impossible to predict how Mello would react if he knew. It could ruin everything if he has to voice his desires.

So Matt is lucky when it ends up that he doesn't have to.

"Hey, are you even listening to me? What are you fucking looking at?" Mello asks, standing there in the black basket ball shorts he saves to sleep in on the hot nights, nothing on his chest but his rosary glinting in the dark against his abdomen. Matt knows he should look away, but he can't help it. He's too tired and caught off guard by his actions being called out to hide. "You know I'm really gifted at reading people Matt, and I see the way you look at me so why don't you just fucking say it?"

"S-say what?"

"You know what! You know what, tell me you think I'm pretty fucking hot."

Mello is laughing now, the deep mocking laugh Matt's heard plenty of times before when he's making fun of Roger and Near. But there's something else there now, an underlining of hoarse strain, some sort of tension and Matt realizes that he means it. He really does want him to say it.

"Uh, yeah I guess you could say that. I think you're pretty fucking hot." Matt's smiling too now, relieved that Mello's not angry with him for catching him in the act of checking him out, smiling until Mello kneels down onto the mattress in front of him, and then _over _him, hands pressed into the pillow on either side of Matt's face. This is too real.

"Prove it to me then." Mello whispers, so quiet Matt has to lean upwards to hear what he's saying and then Mello's got him, roughly pressing his mouth to Matt's and tangling their legs together, tightly gripping Matt by his shoulders. Matt allows himself to reach up and get his hands caught in Mello's soft blond hair that's getting too long for him now, let's himself get lost in the burning pit forming in the center of his stomach, and lower and Mello's tongue that tastes like chocolate. It's his first kiss, and its feverish and clumsy but it's just right, exactly what he's been pining for, and pulls his lips away from Mello's to run them over the boy's jaws, skimming down the side of his throat and latching to suck on his collar bone. His heart jolts when he hears Mello's ragged breath hitch in his throat but the groan quickly dissolves into chuckling and he knows the moment is over.

"Alright, I see Matty. You're not so bad yourself."

It happens every night that week. Sometimes initiated by Matt, sometimes initiated by Mello, but _always_, and always the same way, short and sweet but burning both of them. It doesn't go past kissing but soon Matt has his top off as well and his legs and up hitched around Mello's waist, straining to be closer to him. They never talk about it, so Matt thinks it's impossible for anyone to ever find out and certainly impossible for the person who eventually does.

Mello's hands are all over him, digging into his shoulder blades one minute and then sweeping dangerously close to the waist band of his pajama pants the next, constantly on the move mapping out Matt's abdomen. But Matt's bladder has to ruin the moment, twinging and reminding him that he hasn't gone pee since dinner, and he reluctantly pulls himself out of Mello's clutches.

"I'll be right back."

"That better fucking be true or else."

When Matt creeps into the hallway it takes his eyes a moment to adjust to the new darkness, but not long enough to realize that L is lurking in the middle of it, looking like he was poised to come knocking on their door.

"Ryuzaki wha-"

L holds a finger up to his lips and lithely reaches behind Matt to close his bedroom door behind him, motioning for Matt to follow him down the stairs to the front hall which Matt reluctantly does, despite his bladder and his mind protesting that Mello will truly kill him if he ever found out that L was in the building and Matt didn't let him know.

"You're probably wondering what I am doing here and why I was on my way to see Mello."

"Well yeah! It's the middle of the night!"

"I am well aware of that now, but I lost track of the time working on things in Roger's office and didn't quite realize until I saw your attire," he explained, gesturing to Matt's pajamas. "I am here because I need to give Mello and Near information on an important case I am taking up, a case that may unfortunately have an impact on their lives as well."

"Um okay. So why are you talking to me then?"

L looked listless. The bags under his eyes were darker than usual and his posture was worse than ever, his shoulders completely slumped. There was what looked to be small stains from colourful candy on his white shirt and a lollipop wrapper caught in his black locks.

"I decided that it would be best to wait to tell them about the case in the morning once I realized how late it was, but then I also decided that there is something I must take the opportunity to tell you when I have you away from Mello."

"And that is?"

L sighed and sunk down on to the floor in his usual owl like crouch, and Matt decided to sit with crossed legs in front of him to try and get on his level.

"It was a well thought out decision to place you and Mello in the same room. He has clearly grown and benefitted from having you as a friend, even though he still causes trouble I believe that he would cause much more if you weren't there to keep him grounded. I believed that he was perfectly capable, even required such a friendship despite all of Roger's protests, but this I didn't foresee."

L reaches out towards him and presses a cold hand to Matt's left shoulder, who flinches and doesn't realize what L is trying to say until he also looks down. There on his skin is the only evidence of what's changed between him and Mello, the large purple hickey with impressions of the boy's teeth.

"Oh Ryuzaki, Mello's not hurting me it's that's a..." He trailed off awkwardly.

"I know perfectly well what it is and know that he's not hurting you. Not physically anyways but Matt, you have to understand that by entering this sort of relationship with Mello you are setting yourself up for a lot of emotional pain."

"Ryuzaki that's... I don't understand."

"All young people fool around Matt, and I would not be so worried if I thought that was the only case here. But you and Mello have a very strong bond, a type of bond that can be formed in this place which I've seen before, amongst the first generation of Wammy's students."

"The first generation?!" Mat exclaimed.

"Yes. I've always had to have someone in line to be my successor but when Wammy's House was first founded with its first generation of students things did not go according to plan, because of the emotional vulnerability of the two students I chose to succeed me and my own weak judgment. Terrible things happened to both of them." L's face is for once readable under his usual poker mask, and Matt can see the heavy sadness weighing down his dark irises.

"What kind of terrible things?"

"I'm afraid the most I can tell you is that one of them committed suicide while the other became a serial killer."

"Whaaa... how come I've never heard about this before?"

"I told you when you were first invited to Wammy's that not everyone who had lived here had found it to their liking. It's a difficult subject for me to discuss and I do not want the details passed between the students because I don't want them to become warped. It's important to me that the memory of my first two successors is never disrespected."

"I understand that I guess, but why are you telling me all this now?

"Because the relationship that you're forming with Mello is the kind of relationship that those two students had and that... I also shared with them because of some grave mistakes on my part. The combination of the pressure placed on them as my successors and those relationships had a strong negative impact on who they were, I believe it is what pushed both of them over the edge. Matt, it has been a hypothesis of mine ever since that people like us and in our line of work are not meant to have such intimate relationships, and that they can often result in terrible outcomes for all parties involved."

Matt is stunned. This isn't the kind of conversation he had ever imagined having, especially not in whispers in a dark foyer. Unlike Mello although L was greatly intriguing to him, he didn't desire a close relationship with the detective. Quite honestly, deep in his heart there were a lot of things about L from their few brief encounters that didn't sit right with him, and this conversation was adding to that list.

He would never say it to Mello but L struck him as a very selfish person. Although he offered unhappy orphan's a clean slate at Wammy's it came with many not agreed to terms. There was the way he sought out abandoned child geniuses and prodigies and tested them so that they were confirmed to be up to his standards of intelligence, intelligent enough to become trained to become another him. After that he left out the most important information about the worse things that had gone wrong with students and Wammy's, things that had apparently gone wrong because of his own mistakes. And then he had them dumped into an environment for this training without him, because he was too busy working to give them any guidance, and no peers to turn to, only competitors because they had all been told that they must do their best to succeed him, and that meant no distractions from their studies, leading to an extremely lonely childhood.

And now Matt had formed the first solid friendship in his life with Mello in this academic emotional wasteland, and L was telling him that it was dangerous, that he couldn't have it because 'people like us'- and suddenly Matt didn't like being lumped into the same category as L- weren't meant to have them, that they should all be alone like him and put their careers above everything. Because those types of people would make the best L's, the most sufficient successors and what they themselves wanted was of no importance.

"I think that your completely wrong, Ryuzaki. I don't think that being with Mello is going to hurt me at all."

"You may not see it now while you and Mello are still in school, but soon with this case I'm taking up, being my 3 successors you, I'm about 90% certain that you Mello, and Near may be placed under a great deal of stress, the kind that could destroy the bond that's formed between you. I do not wish to doubt you Matt because you are a very strong young man, but it is reasonable to assume that you could not handle that, that it could cause you to do things you could regret."

"I _will not_ kill myself if Mello leaves me. And he's not going to leave me." Matt can feel warmth bubbling in his chest, threatening to rise up into his throat.

"Matt, love can make us do things we would never imagine we could, no matter how well we think we know ourselves. That's why I think it would be easier for you if-"

"If what?! If I left Mello now?! Well sorry, no matter what you think is best I'm not going to listen to you because being with Mello is the best thing in my life; he's the only thing that makes me truly happy. And I'm not going to let you scare me into letting go of that just because you think we're going to be torn apart by the competition to become your successor or whatever, okay?! Because I don't really give a shit about all that. I just care about Mello. So consider this my official resignation 3rd successor, as your successor of any ranking, I don't want to be you! I just want to be with Mello."

L meets all of this with complete stone faced silence. He slowly rises up from his crouch and stands with hunched shoulders, biting the tip of his thumb. Matt remains where he is on the floor, panting from his rant.

"I understand. I will make the necessary altercations to The List and other documents to have that arranged. Please forgive me for upsetting you, it was not my intention. I regret no longer having you as one my successors, but I understand that you wish to choose your own path. Mello is lucky to have someone as loyal as you by his side."

L begins to turn back to the direction of Roger's office but Matt grabs a fistful of his white shirt, the only one he seems to own in his hand.

"Wait. I want to know... tell me why you did this to Mello. Why did you place him second, you must have known what that would do to him, you know that he's just as god as Near and he wants this more than Near! He wants it more than anything." _He may want it more than me._

"The decision took a great deal of thought. But in the end no matter how driven Mello is, Near is the right choice for the job. He never loses his composure, just works diligently. He is more like me, and because of that I am able to keep my distance where as with Mello, I care too much about his well being. No matter what being placed as second does to him, it can't be worse than what would happen if he succeeded me prematurely. He may think he wants it more than anything, but he is not ready to make all the sacrifices it requires."

L fixes Matt with his piercing owl like gaze and Matt knows exactly what he means. _He is not ready to sacrifice what he has with me. _And Matt hoped that he never would be. He selfishly hoped that no matter what succeeding L would always just be out of Mello's reach, knew it was the only way for them to continue to stay together, forever. And he wanted that so badly, he couldn't comprehend what would happen if something stopped it. And very truly badly, he wanted to watch L be proven wrong. _See Ryuzaki, I'm not indifferent at all. _


	9. Chapter 9: The Kira Case

_Woah, I can't believe I've posted 5 chapters this month alone. For some reason my motivation to write is through the roof, and now I'm on my 2 week holiday from school so hurray! Anyways, I think things are going to get a lot more intense in the story now because Mello and Matt are leaving Wammy's House, so I really hope that you all like the direction it's heading. I just really hope that I don't get struck with writer's block because of that. Also, please review if you have any comments or constructive criticism, I would love to hear it. Here's your Chapter Nine:  
><em>  
>Mello is asleep already when Matt creeps back upstairs and he doesn't question why Matt took so long to come back from the bathroom in the morning. Matt's relieved because he's convinced that Mello would have been able to see through any excuse he thought up, no matter how crafty. He's too excited and distracted to notice if Matt's acting like he's hiding something anyways once he's called down to Roger's office with Near to talk to L.<p>

"I wonder if it's a new case! He might make us swear to keep it confidential, but I'll make an exception to tell you. After all, you're the 3rd successor so you should probably know whatever it is too." Mello tells him before heading downstairs, and Matt wonders if Ryuzaki will tell him that Matt no longer is the 3rd successor, and if Mello will think less of him once he finds out.

Matt's stomach feels queasy so he skips class to hide amongst the back shelves of the library, puttering around on his DS and trying to stay distracted with Pokémon. He's scared to know what L's going to tell Mello- scared that L is right and that the information will ruin everything, will start breaking down what's between him and Mello. And Matt's not even sure what is between him and Mello. He and Mello are best friend's, he's sure of this because he's Mello's only friend. And Mello must care deeply about him even if he doesn't express it through words, but is it as deeply as Matt cares? Is he on Mello's mind all the time? Is Mello happiest when he's spending time with him? Would Mello give up anything for him?

Matt can't figure out the answers to any of these questions and he knows that Mello will bulk if he ever asks them, will get angry or go running. He would be too stubborn to admit it if any of the answers were yes. Could Matt be satisfied with that, living without the confirmation of Mello's feelings for him?

Mello knows where to find him as always, comes and sits down next to him and snatches the DS from Matt's hands. His blue eyes are wide as saucers and he places his hands on Matt's knees.

"You're not going to believe this- this is the most bat shit insane case I've ever heard."

And so Mello tells him. Tells him of the strange goings on in Japan, of the large number people dying without warning, mostly of heart attacks from no apparent cause, and not just any people, criminals. Tells him that the media is calling these deaths the work of "Kira", the work of a killer demon or of a killer god. Tells him that the great detective L is going to bring him to justice, has challenged him on live television after an ICPO meeting to a game of cat and mouse that's going to be watched and scrutinized by the entire planet, as this case is the biggest case of the century, how L has already tricked Kira into revealing that he is in the Kanto region of Japan and is going to travel there and Mello just knows that he's going to win triumphantly. Matt doesn't say it out loud, but he thinks that L isn't as confident in his skills as Mello is, otherwise he wouldn't have told Mello so many details about the case. He can tell what he's trying to prepare Mello and Near for, the possibility that it might become their case as well.

Matt feels weird about the facts of the case, uncomfortable with them, but not any more uncomfortable than anyone else would be if you told them about it. He doesn't have any notion or foreshadowing of doom, any vision of himself lying in the street with bullets in his chest, bleeding out for Mello's sake. Even if he did, it wouldn't have made any difference. Things were already in motion and Matt was in too deep, too far with Mello. L had a better understanding of these matters than he gave him credit for.

Mello resumes his correspondence with L, much frequenter than it was before, emailing him back and forth almost every day about all the strange details of the case that are arising. He starts printing off these emails and keeping all of the information in a large black binder in their room, starts staying up late reading this in the lamplight, taking frantic notes when he has ideas and sending them to L the next day, who usually informs him that they've already occurred to him as well.

Matt always goes to bed before Mello now and the kisses the touches, that all stops because Mello only has catching Kira on his mind, tells Matt that he's too busy whenever he tries to initiate anything, and that almost makes Matt hate Kira more than his killing does. But Mello still lets Matt in on everything, still treats him with the same warmth he only reserves for him, and for now Matt is sure that L must be wrong.

The binder expands as the months go by, as the New Year begins and the snow melts and things get stranger and stranger. L's Kira Task Force composed of members of the NPA seems to take a step back for every step they take forward and the game continues with more criminals dying with no sign of stopping. The media's already begun to worship the first Kira by the time the second one pops up, and the world debates the ethics of vigilante murder and god complexes. L stops emailing Mello as often when the summer comes and Mello starts throwing up again. Matt cups his fingers around his friends protruding ribs and hip bones at night and finds that he dislikes L more than ever.

The emails stop coming altogether around the beginning of October, but this didn't necessarily mean anything. L had gone long periods without contact with Mello before, and this could just mean that things are becoming more heated in the case. The last email from L was odd though, because it didn't contain any information about the case, it was just L asking Mello what he thought about the idea of shinigami.

Neither Mello nor Matt knew what a shinigami was until they looked it up togerher in the library, the strange death gods of Japanese culture and religion. They could see the similarities with how people were comparing Kira to a god in the media but couldn't see what it realistically had to do with the case. Mello was, still surprisingly to Matt, a man of God, still dragged Matt to Mass with him every Sunday, but he believed that the demons of the world resided inside of people's weaknesses of character, not as physical beings. Matt found his beliefs entirely agnostic and that the older he got the less he trusted anything but the concrete facts. They both thought that maybe L was under too much stress. There's no change in Wammy's atmosphere come November 5th, although it's raining there as well. There's no feeling that the building is emptier, that it's no longer fulfilling any purpose because both its founder and inspiration are gone, both their lights snuffed out by Kira's darkness.

Roger calls Mello and Near down to his office in the late afternoon of December 5th. Matt's with him when it happens, they've just come inside from playing a game of soccer with everyone, are laughing and wiping the mud from their jeans and dusting the snow from their hair. It was too sunny a day to waste despite Roger's warnings that they'd all catch colds. Mello swore at him until he let them all outside anyways, was in a shockingly good mood and actually passed the ball to the other kids, only tackled Matt in the field and only because he started it by tossing a snowball at him.

It's been exactly a year since the case began and a month since L's and Watari's deaths, like clockwork, like magic. Like L signed a contract entailing his death in fine print when he challenged Kira that day, bargaining the lives of both himself and his caregiver and his top three students. But none of them signed up for this kind of end. These sorts of things are never anyone's fault really.

Matt waits outside the door, eavesdropping as usual, and when Mello comes out of the office Matt can tell right away that he's furious from the way his hands are balled up tightly into fists, his brows furrowed and his blue eyes burning with what appears to be tears forming. Matt knows better than to approach him even though he wants to ask what's wrong, and Mello brushes past him to stomp upstairs. Matt waits for Near to come out as well, even though talking to the stoic faced boy always sends shivers up his spine, he gives him the creeps. He'll do it to find out whatever he needs to know to help Mello though.

"Near, please can you tell me what happened?"

"I suppose that you're entitled to know as well. L and Watari were killed by Kira a month ago. Roger wanted to confirm everything to make sure that it was all true before he told us."

Matt is sure that Near is the only person in the world who thinks it's alright to drop information like this so bluntly. He knows he shouldn't be shocked, he had considered the possibility that this case could be the one L finally lost, could tell that L was considering it himself since the very beginning, but it's hard to truly grasp that him and Watari are dead. L always seemed so ageless; every time he visited he never seemed to change to Matt. He can only imagine how had it's going to be for Mello who actually cared about L, who now can never prove to him that he's a better successor than Near. He can feel Mello's pain twisting his own gut.

"You're serious aren't you?! Ah sorry, of course you are I know. What did Mello say, or did he say anything at all?"

"He refused to team up with me as L's heirs on the case, which is very unfortunate because I could use his help, I know that we would be able to solve it much more quickly together rather than alone. It's quite selfish of him but I know that he's set on it. He also said that he wants to strike out on his own now, to leave Wammy's completely. Roger thinks he's just saying it out of grief, that he's not actually serious. But I'm not so sure. Matt, you have to keep an eye on him. He is very vulnerable now that he knows about L. Make sure he doesn't do something he regrets. Roger's at his wits end now that L and Watari are gone, he doesn't know what to do with himself so he can't deal with Mello right now. It's up to you."

_Of course it is, everything to do with Mello is always up to me. _

"Matt, promise me that you will take care of him?"

It was the closest thing to emotion that he had ever heard in Near's voice and it catches Matt off his guard, his dark eyes actually seemed to show some signs of melancholy.

"I will Near, I promise."

Mello appeared completely emotionless and barely spoke two words to him for the rest of the day; despite how much Matt was trying to engage him.

"Do you want me to take you to church? I can get the pastor for you if you think it would help to talk to him? You don't even have to walk, I'll carry you." He offered as he tried rubbing Mello's arms that were curled around his knees as he lay on the floor, but he pushed away Matt's hands roughly.

He wouldn't even eat the chocolate Matt brought for him. He just kept telling Matt that he would prefer to be left alone, and when the end of the day came he climbed up to his own bunk and Matt went to bed by himself for the first time in 3 years. The twin mattress feels too large and his chest is aching as he listens to Mello's deep breathing above him, but is comforted by the fact that the boy is asleep and can't go anywhere now. He's been watching him like a hawk all day and following him everywhere he goes, except for to the bathroom, but he watches the door until Mello comes out and times it to make sure he's not taking abnormally long. The weirdest part was Mello didn't even seem annoyed, no swearing or anything, just listlessly repeated for Matt to leave him be, in such a way that Matt almost thought that might actually be the best course of action although he couldn't bear it, not after what Near told him. He refuses to accept though that Mello would ever leave Wammy's without telling him, without his agreement that he would come along. They've been together 9 years, over half their lives. There's just no way.

_

Matt knows there's something wrong the moment he wakes up. It's too cold, and not just because Mello's not in bed with him. The air is icy and too clean and sharp in his chest, and he swears that he can see he breath like a glinting cloud in the dark. He wraps the blanket tightly around his shoulders and slips out of bed, peering over the edge of the top bunk even though he already knows that Mello isn't going to be there because the window has been left open wide. He doesn't even know what he's doing when he runs over to it, placing his hands on the freezing metal sill and leaning his head out into the winter night to scream his best friend's name into the darkness, although he must already be way too far away to hear him, he can see the prints of his boots extending as far as he can see across the yard of Wammy's.

He just doesn't know what to do but scream, screams his throat raw until Roger comes pounding upstairs to ask what the Hell is going on, and when he realizes looks like he's going to scream as well. He runs out of the room to round up the teachers, to put Wammy's on lock down because despite his hasty judgement that led to this disaster he'll be damned if this institution he's wasted most his life on falls to pieces. He's not going to lose any more students. He forces Matt to come with him of course, and Matt barely has time to notice the white envelope on his pillow and shove it in his pocket before he's locked in Roger's office, who tells him that although he trusts him he has to take safety precautions now because he doesn't want to leave Matt alone, free to try and run after Mello. But Matt has already made up his mind that the first chance he gets, of course he will. Mello was the only thing for him here. He tears apart the envelope angrily once he hears the lock click and smoothes out the crumbled paper on the desk, flicking on the table lamp next to him to make out the perfect printing.

_Dear Matt,_

_I'm not going to tell you where I am and you will never be able to figure it out with your poor deduction skills, so just let go of the idea of trying to find me now, okay? Because I don't want you to and it's better for the both of us if you simply just accept that. Just forget about me and find someone else to cling to. I don't want any part of Wammy's attached to me anymore and that includes you, because I've outgrown this place. I'm old enough to find my own way in this world and I don't need or want you in my life. You're only going to be a burden to me and slow me down if I feel obliged to look after you as I pursue the Kira Case, you'd just end up getting us both killed. I don't need any distractions as I set out to bring Kira to justice, which I will do no matter how long it takes. I'm going to avenge Watari's and L's deaths. I'll never forgive you if you ruin this for me, so just stay away. _

_Sincerely, Mello_

That fucking prick. If he thought that he could convince Matt that he didn't care about him or had secretly hated being his best friend this whole time then he had another thing coming. He had seen the way Mello treated the people he hated, and this wasn't it. You don't play countless soccer games with someone you hate. You don't stay up late telling scaring stories in the dark with them, or skip class to build book forts to hide in in the library; you don't smoke your first cigarette with them or buy them presents for their birthday. You don't force them to go to church because you're worried for their soul and you don't sleep in their bed every night and you don't beat up bullies for them even though they never asked you to do any of that stuff. And certainly, he couldn't possibly believe that you would kiss them the way Mello had kissed him. That could not possibly be true.

So Mello's letter was absolute bullshit. He was just trying to get Matt to stay away because he was on some super angsty grief revenge trip and had convinced himself that he didn't need anyone and was doing this for the sake of Matt's safety. He was trying to become some sort of stupid antihero, the kind Mello always rooted for when they were watching movies, it was definitely the exact type of thing Mello would indulge him. He wanted to get all the glory of avenging Watari and L's deaths? Well, Matt was never going to allow him to have all the fun by himself. Selfish melodramatic delusional bastard.

Matt tore through Roger's filing cabinet, a horribly disordered system of papers and folders, until he found what he was looking for, the one with a big old English M at the top along with Mello's name. He was astonished that these things weren't under tighter security and decided to grab his own file as well; stuffing it in his pajama top and flipping open Mello's. He couldn't let himself feel bad about invading his best friend's privacy with what he was putting him through.

Mello's real name was Mihael Keehl. His father was involved in the Russian Mafia before he shot his wife and himself, which Matt wishes he didn't know now, wishes that Mello could have told him this himself even though he hasn't given away any more details since that day nine years ago. Their home had been in Moscow just like Mello had told him, but now he also had an exact address, along with the address to a bank and an account number, and Matt knows exactly where his best friend has gone. If he's going to take on the Kira case, then he's going to need some kind of income, and with how rich he said his parents were they must have left him some money. Matt knows that he himself needs money and how to hack into any low security account to get the amount he needs for a plane ticket to Russia, but he's also terrified of going alone.

Moscow's a huge, non-tourist friendly city and the one thing Matt's never grasped is languages, has never been able to speak a word of anything but English, French, and Spanish, the three that every Wammy's student is required to learn to even be considered for The List, is still shocked that L overlooked it. He's never even heard Mello even speak any Russian although it's his native tongue, has a feeling that even that was too personal for him to share with him. What if he runs into trouble, it's bound to happen venturing into a country he's never been to where he can't even speak the language? How on earth will he be able to talk his way out?

But Matt has already accepted that for Mello, he's willing to take any risk. Even his life.

Mello stuffs this file into his shirt as well and manages to clean everything back up into its ordered chaos before Roger comes to collect him, to take him to collect his things from his room and move into Near's of all places. _Mello would be furious. _Matt gets his clothes quickly and notices that all of Mello's are gone. How the hell did he pack everything without Matt waking up? He was so angry with himself for having fallen into such a deep sleep.

Near didn't look surprised to see him, but then again when has Near ever looked surprised about anything ever? Before Roger leaves Matt realizes that it's his help he's going to need, he's the one smarter than him who can help him find the way to sneak out of Wammy's with Roger on red alert and to find his way to the air port without a car or a bus to take him there. But could he be trusted not to snitch on him? He supposed he didn't have anything to lose.

"I'm so sorry Near, I wasn't looking after him like I should have been, and I made a stupid mistake. But you have to help me, I know where to find him but I have no idea how I'm going to get there under Roger's watch! Please, I know you two didn't like each other and it might not be wise of me to go running off too but I can't leave him on his own out there! I just can't!" He pleaded earnestly, couldn't believe he was begging the boy Mello hated most for help to get to him.

"I never disliked Mello in any way. In fact, I have quite the admiration for his skills despite how emotional and rash he can be. I regret the way he built a grudge against me, especially the way it's preventing us from solving the Kira case together now. I will help you of course, I don't think Mello should be on his own either, and you are the person who can look after him the best, try and make him see some reason. It's not your fault he ran away."

Near's monotone voice and expression now seem close to gentle, and Matt feels uncomfortable about all the mean things he's said about him behind his back to appease Mello, but he supposes it wouldn't help to apologize for them now.

"Thank you! Thank you so much! What I need is to get to the airport, I can hack out the money easily, I know it sounds bad but I can put it back when I find a way to make cash."

"I wouldn't be too concerned about it honestly. If you take it out of a rich account the owner probably won't notice the amount for a plane ticket to Russia is missing. I would recommend taking small amounts from multiple accounts as well to have converted into Russian currency."

"How did you know he's gone to Russia?" Matt exclaimed.

"Well he would go back home first of course. He thinks he's lost his entire accent but I can still detect the hints of it. Then I'm not positive where he'll go, it's probably between Japan to be closer to the Kira case or to the United States or Canada, a country with a similar government to here so he'll be more comfortable with how things operate. I can distract Roger easily by pretending I'm having a mental break down stimulated by the loss of L, he'll be too concerned about the possibility of losing another successor to notice you're gone until you've boarded the plane. But to be safe we should wait a week, until his panic has died down. It should be in the evening too to buy us more time, so no one sees that you're missing from class until the next day. As for transportation that's easy, you sneak out our window after calling a taxi cab to collect you, you tell them to meet you farther up the road."

"Won't the driver question what I'm doing meeting him on my own and going to the airport at my age?"

"I think you will find that most people question nothing so long as you have the money to pay them with. The only thing I would like in return for my help is to give you my email so you can give me updates on how both you and Mello are doing."

"Aw Near, I don't know. It's not that I'm not grateful to you for helping us but he'd be so pissed if he found out I was telling you about him working on the case. He's going to be determined to solve it first you know, since he's refused to work with you in any way."

"You don't have to give me specific details, just let me know where you are and that the both of you are alright. Please, promise me this if only for my peace of mind."

To Matt it seemed that Near never had a single worry. He didn't seem to be showing any remorse over Watari and L's passing so it was bizarre he seemed to be so concerned about his and Mello's well being and future, more bizarre still that he harboured no ill feelings towards Mello after all the cruel things that the boy had said and done to him, for no reason at all aside from his own insecurity about being inferior.

"All right then, I guess I promise."

_You better have a damn good apology for all of this when I find you Mello. I've put up with a lot of shit but I swear to God I'm never going let you live this one down. _


	10. Chapter 10: As Cold As Your Heart

_Okay, so I know next to nothing about Russia or Moscow so I'm researching a bit but I'm not getting a whole lot so if you're from the country or city or know anything about them I greatly apologize for the lack of description or mistakes. I suck. But anyways, I hope everyone is having a lovely Yule, or Christmas, or had a good Hanukkah or whatever other holidays you guys celebrate! This is my gift to you I guess, and I hope you like it and that you're all spending a happy time with the loved ones in your life. Here's your Chapter Ten:_

Matt knew he was an idiot for not taking a warmer coat, for somehow forgetting that Moscow was known for its cruel harsh winters. His cheeks were stinging raw pink from the strong cold wind and flakes blowing against his face, he had to squint through the white to see where he was going and was sworn at by the many people he bumped into on the sidewalk. He could feel his toes going numb as he curled them tightly inside of his boots. He longed to lie against each brick wall he passed, his body feeling his lack of sleep and the three hour jump forward of the time zones.

The week leading up to taking the plane here had been Hell. He could barely sleep in Near's room, couldn't stop thinking about where Mello might be and what might be happening to him. He tossed and turned most of each night away imagining Mello's reaction to him showing up uninvited. Would he be relieved that Matt had seen through his scheme of a letter or completely furious? Was it not all bullshit like Matt thought, could there be a bit of truth and Mello didn't actually want him around. _It doesn't matter, _he tried to reassure himself. _It doesn't matter what that bastard wants because he can't make you feel this way about him and then abandon you like this, that's not fucking fair. And what would you do if you didn't follow him huh? Just wait around here at Wammy's until your eighteen and then what? Doesn't it freak you out that he's the only thing you see in your future? _

It did freak Matt out, freaked him out so bad because he knew that although Near was right that they should wait a week to avoid suspicion, there was a chance Mello might already have left Moscow, or at least a chance that he wouldn't be able to track him down in a city so large. Who knew if he had decided to go back to his parents old house or somewhere else entirely, the boy was fucking unpredictable. And he might try and shake Matt off as soon as he found him. Matt hated himself for ever letting himself believe that Mello wouldn't leave him behind if he left Wammy's House. His whole life he had never been of importance to anybody, so why had he let himself think that this was going to be any different?

He spends the night before he's supposed to leave packing all his things, he's so ready to get out of there but when Near nods him a simple goodbye the next evening, totally unfazed as usual as he headed downstairs to make sure that Roger's time for the next few hours was completely taken up, he found himself frozen in his crouch on the windowsill. What if he was making a huge mistake? What if finding Mello will hurt him worse than his leaving without him did? _Your being an idiot, _he reminded himself, _there's nothing here for you in this place now. _

With that he pushes himself off, feels his heart catch in his throat for the moment he's airborne before the soft impact with the snow. He makes his way to the spot up the road where he told the cab to meet him, gets in and gives the directions to the airport to the driver and feels so much braver now, so much better watching the lights of Wammy's House fade away knowing this is the last time he will ever see them. He feels like he's letting something wash off of him, like now that he's left it behind he can really begin his life, wonders if this is how Mello felt too.

He's not even nervous getting on the plane because of how high he's feeling, even though this is only the second time he's flown in his life and the last time was nine years ago with a man whose now dead. The feeling of his stomach dropping doesn't even bother him; he just lets it add to his excitement as he tunes his ears out of the noise of the conversations around him and into the humming of the engine. He played on his DS the whole flight to keep his mind off what would happen after they landed, but now he's wishing that he slept so that he would have more of his wits about him.

After they did land and he collected his bag off the luggage carousel and he got out the guidebook and map and the notes Near had given him about reading things written in Russian, he realizes just how hard this is all going to be. He calls a cab and cringes when he has to keep repeating what he's saying to the grumpy looking driver over and over again, his pronunciation breaking on every word he reads from the book and Near's notes with no accent at all, feels like crying from the fed up look he gives him. He tips the man double to make up for it, but regrets it when he's dropped off and is doubting if this is actually where he asked to be, the street doesn't look right at all, the buildings are too modern and sky scraper like and not like Mello's parents old manor-ish looking house from the photo. He gets frustrated when he tries to ask a few people passing by questions about how to get to the street and they brush right past him or curse at him. So he just starts wandering aimlessly forward, making sure to take no turns for fear of getting even more lost.

He's just about to give up and duck inside a restaurant to try and buy some soup or something to warm himself up when he sees the street behind through an open alley way, a street with buildings that look smaller and older and more like what he's searching for. He doesn't hesitate, doesn't stop to think, just pushes into the space between the brick walls and starts making his way over. It's darker in the alley way than he thought, so dark he doesn't notice the opening between the back of the restaurant and the building on the next street, doesn't see the two men hovering in the shadows and the taller one stick his boot out, just falls on his face on the grimy cement.

They both step out and it's all so horribly like every single fucking movie he's ever seen, the tall muscular bald guy with his black leather coat undone to reveal the swirling pattern of a tattoo extending up his neck, the shorter greasier looking one with the thick brown beard and the switch blade already flicked open to make up for his skinnier build. Matt hears the tall man shout the words at him, would know even though he doesn't understand the language, even without the gesture to his bag that it's money that they want and that he's going to give it to them, even if it means that he's going to starve in the streets, because he'd rather die from that than bleed out here in this alleyway because of his stupid mistake. Or maybe they'll slice him up anyways purely for the thrill of it and he'll only have himself to blame then too.

The man yells again and leans over him further, snatches the blade from his buddy's hand and yanks Matt up roughly by the hood of his jacket, pressing the cool edge to his throat. Matt knows how easy it will be for the sharp metal to slice through his skin, just like his own father's pocket knife, knows he won't even be able to get a scream out before he's dead. His hearts pounding so loudly in his ears so he doesn't know why he can't make his body move, why his arms aren't chucking the bag away from him as far as he possibly can so he can take off running, like he's heard you're supposed to do if you're a dumb tourist who walks into dark alleyways in areas you don't know. He can feel and smell the man's foul smoky breath on his face as he spits out more threats. _Mello will never even know your dead. And maybe if he did he wouldn't even care. _

That's when he feels the pressure leave his throat suddenly, can hear a new voice shouting with familiar angry passion. Even though he's never heard it in Russian he would recognize Mello's swearing anywhere. He cracks open his tightly squeezed shut eyes that he hadn't even realized had closed and took in the sight of Mello standing in the dimly lit alley behind him from the same side he had come. It had only been a week since they'd seen each other but that was the longest they had ever gone and for some reason Mello seemed to look older. He's got on a black winter coat with a feather lined hood drawn up over his head that's way too big for him, hangs down to his knees, but it broadens out his shoulders and the shadows the feathers cast on his face make him look menacing, even without the gun cocked towards them from his outstretched right arm. Where in the world did he get a gun and how did he already know how to use it? Matt supposed he shouldn't be too surprised.

He stared down the barrel and watched the small silver cross dangling from a chain attached to the handle swing back and forth from the momentum of the gun being whipped out from the coat. He concentrated on that as if it was hypnotizing him, imagining that Mello was inducing him into a state of courage. A state that wasn't him shaking in his boots, hyperventilating and feeling like he was going to wet his pants from the electric tension coming off the blade a few inches from his neck being gripped above it by a hulking man who wouldn't hesitate to plunge it into his Adam's apple if he called any bluff on Mello's part. And Matt couldn't tell if he was bluffing or not, even when he heard the click of the safety being taken off when the bald man let out a harsh laugh and spat something tauntingly back at his best friend in response to the threats. He felt himself being pulled further off the ground and the man wraps his arm tightly across his collar bone and wrenches Matt up with him to stand with his back against his chest, his other hand reaching up to press the handle of the switch blade against Matt's throat until there's an aching pressure. He's a hostage now. All of the weight of his body is on his toes which struggle to scrap the ground in the man's hold. Every breath he takes rattles in his chest, and he can feel the tears starting to trickle hot tracks down his cheeks.

Mello's next words are short, come out quiet, almost a tense hiss. He feels the man's head shake over the top of his head. His eyes close before it happens. His ears are left ringing when the gun goes off, the loud crack sends a jolt through his chest and he feels the warmth splatter his hair and his forehead before he slumps down out of the man's hold to kneel on the concrete, hears the dull thump behind him. _The dead man's hold_. He watches his bearded companion sprint off as fast as he can into the night and he raises his palm to his head before bringing the sticky red substance running down his fingers back in front of his eyes, can't stop staring at it. He can't look at Mello.

"Fuck, that piece of shit did not know what he was doing! Couldn't the idiot see I had a clear shot at his head because of how tall he was, you weren't even fucking close to being in the way! Matt? Hey Matt come on, we've got to get out of here."

Matt recoils when he listens to Mello's footsteps come towards him, tries to push his body up by pushing the heels of his palms into the ground but his ankle slips out from underneath him and he falls onto his back. He brings his hands over his face and can smell the metal tang of the blood again and starts sobbing. _So much for having courage_.

"Oh Matty, fuck come here. It's okay now alright, I've got your back."

Mello scoops his bag up off the ground and throws the straps over his shoulders before reaching down to Matt and wrapping a hand around his waist to pull him to his feet, but Matt just can't stop shaking and he finds himself unable to take a step. Mello sighs and takes the bag off again, crouching down and gesturing for Matt to climb on.

"Come on, I'll carry you. Just hold on to my neck."

Matt still can't get his feet to move.

"Oh for fuck's sake!"

Mello gets up again and throws the bag into Matt's arms which catch it, but it still knocks the wind out of him, causing him to fall back against Mello's arm and chest when Mello sweeps his knees out from under him.

"Shit your heavy! What have you been doing, eating all chocolate I left? Just fucking hold on to the bag then will you, were not that far away."

Mello jogs as quickly as he can with Matt's weight in his arms and Matt cringes when he feels the gun holster hidden beneath his coat brush against his leg. He's relieved when they finally come to the long circular driveway before a large white house with a wraparound porch. The windows were boarded up and the lawn was overgrown, and Mello pried open more boards covering the window of the front door before reaching through a jagged hole punched in the glass to jiggle the lock open. He carries Matt over to a black couch and places him down.

"Fuck you're freezing aren't you? I haven't managed to get the heat working yet but the water is, so I'll get you a bath going okay?"

Matt stares past Mello's shoulder until the boy grasps his chin in the leather glove Matt didn't even notice he was wearing and jerks his face up to look at him. His blue fires are brighter than they've ever been, and Matt finds that all of his fears melt away instantly.

"If I didn't shoot him then he would have killed you, there's no doubt about it. He was scum, you understand? Come on Matt, fucking talk to me!"

"I understand. I could have been killed."

"Exactly!"

"If you hadn't shown up at just the right moment then I would be dead right now."

"… Yes?" Mello trailed off running a hand through his blond hair and looking uncertain.

"Then can you maybe understand why I'm just a little pissed off at you right now?!" Matt shouts and sits up.

"Pissed off at me? I fucking saved your life!"

"You wouldn't have had to save it if I hadn't had to come chasing after you in Moscow, not knowing where the fuck I was going!"

"I fucking told you not come! I didn't want you to come!" Mello protested.

"What the stupid letter?! Did you really think a piece of paper was going to stop me, I saw right through that shit! Besides it doesn't matter what you fucking want! What about me huh, how could you just leave me there by myself, what was I supposed to do?! Just wait?"

"You were… It was supposed to tell you not to wait for me, to just move the fuck on with your life okay? That's what's best what for you, not clinging on to me and risking your life all the time, which is bound to happen again with what I'm getting into."

"Why the hell do you get to decide what's going to be best for me?! That's my call, it's my life and I'll do whatever I damn want with it! And what I want sure as fuck isn't my best friend betraying my trust by sneaking away in the middle of the night and thinking that leaving me a note trying to denounce nine years' worth of history is going to suffice!"

Matt had told himself that he wasn't going to start crying again, wasn't going to let his tightening throat cheapen his words by cutting them up with sobs, but here he was looking like a complete baby, a boy having a temper tantrum.

"Fuck Matty… fuck just stop crying okay! I'm sorry alright? Come on, let's just get you in the tub okay, you're freezing."

He pulls Matt by the cuff of his coat sleeve into the wide hallway and through a doorway leading into a huge bathroom with a black tile floor. A white bathtub with silver claw feet sat in the center and Mello leaned over to turn the taps, sticking his hand under the running faucet. He turned to Matt and unzipped his coat before working on the buttons of his shirt.

"I can do it myself!" Matt objected before fumbling with his icicle like fingers slipping around the buttons and meeting Mello's smirking face.

"Uh huh, sure you can. You weren't even wearing mittens you big idiot, didn't anyone ever tell you Russia's fucking cold?"

"As cold as your heart, you ass!"

"Oh he wounds me!" Mello laughed, placing his hand over his chest before shrugging his own coat off and tugging his shirt over his head. Matt couldn't help but swallow as he watched him undo the gun holster and place it on the marble sink counter. "Stop staring at me and get in the tub loser!"

Matt got in quickly, the hot water stinging his skin but he welcomed it after the winter wind burning his face outside. He tried not to look at Mello again until he too was submerged in the water, once he heard the splash. _Of course he even wears his rosary in the bath, the weirdo, _Matt thought and before he can stop himself he reaches out and runs his hand over the beads, over Mello's bare chest. Mello lets out a deep sigh, and covers Matt's hand with his own warm and rough palm.

"I missed you." Matt admits, leaning forward slowly, and for the first time in many months Mello doesn't stop him, lets him press their mouths together. But to Matt's disappointment he keeps it chaste, capturing Matt's hands reaching up to ensnare themselves in his hair and using them to turn Matt around so that his back is facing his chest, wrapping an arm around his waist as if it's the most casual thing in the world, them being in the bath together. Matt can feel his cheeks flushing.

"Yeah, I'm glad that you're not dead you little shit."

"Good. Because I'm fucking staying whether you like it or not! You better not try to ditch me again."

"I won't. There's no point I guess. Besides I could use an accomplice, someone to clean all my dishes and to go out and buy me more chocolate and-" Matt smacks him in the nose but Mello isn't fazed, lands a punch to his gut that makes Matt want to throw up.

"Fuck Mello!"

"Yeah, you'd like that wouldn't you." Matt knows he's getting redder every second that they're in the bath together.

"Hey, where'd you get the gun?" Matt asks, trying to change the subject.

"Oh, that's one of my old man's. It was where he left it, beneath the floorboards of his and my mother's bedroom, the only one the police didn't find. They did a big raid on this place after they died to take all the weapons and drugs and such, then they boarded it up. I guess they thought it wouldn't cell, what with its backstory and all, which is maybe why there's no squatters. People think it's fucking haunted, and you wouldn't want to piss off the ghost of a Russian mafia member, would you?"

"And you thought you'd need it? You already knew you might have to kill someone?" Matt didn't think the feeling of the man's blood splattering on his head was ever going to go away, no matter how hard he scrubbed at his hair.

"Well yeah, I knew I'd need protection in this city. And I'm going to need it to gain some power when we go to the U.S."

"So that's where we're headed huh? Wait, what do you mean gain some power?" Matt asked.

"With the mafia in Los Angeles. If I'm going to take on Kira I'm going to need some man power to help me get things done, and that's the best way to get it."

"Through the mafia?! You're going to infiltrate the mafia! How, by just randomly shooting up people?"

"You're acting like it's a fucking surprise but it's not. I grew up around this lifestyle, at least for the first few years. I would have been a part of it once I was older if my parents hadn't died. I know how this shit works. These guys have a lot of balls, but they need someone with real intellect to show them how they can broaden their influence, and having power over things is all they want. I'll assassinate a rival gang member or two who they couldn't get on their own to show them I mean business and they can benefit from helping me with the Kira case." Mello explained.

"You've really thought this out haven't you. But being involved with them, killing people to get what you want… that doesn't make you hesitate at all."

"No! Not if it's to catch Kira. It's for the greater good, for justice. It's what L would want, and I owe it to him to finish this."

_Fucking L. _

"And what if killing me was for the greater good huh?" It comes out as a whisper from his lips, but Mello hears him anyways.

"Matty, the people I'll be killing will have killed people with themselves, their apart of the mafia so they're not innocent. I'm not going to be murdering random civilians, only criminals who are necessary to get out of the way."

_That almost sounds like something Kira would say._

"If you say so. So when do we go to the U.S.?"  
>"I already bought the plane tickets. We leave New Year's eve. It's more important than Christmas here so nobody will be flying away, and Christmas here is mostly celebrated on the 7th of Januaary so hopefully hardly anyone will be flying home either. I fucking hate crowded airports."<p>

"Plane _tickets_ huh? As in more than one? Just fucking admit it, you were praying that I was going to come after you!"

Mello pinches Matt's shoulder roughly.

"Hey shut up! I just knew that you might try something fucking stupid like following me, so I thought I'd buy another just in case to avoid any hold ups. Don't flatter yourself you bastard!"

"Mello… You're glad I'm here now right?" Matt asks, twisting in Mello's arms to meet his fiery blue gaze before his eyes close. Matt's noticed that he can't stand to look him in the eye when he has to say these kinds of things.

"Yeah, of course I'm glad you're here dummy. Now let's get out of this tub, I can feel your disgusting pruney feet on my leg!"

Mello pushes Matt off of him roughly and sloshes water all over the floor by hoping out of the tub so fast. He turns back over his shoulder to glare at Matt who's laughing at him, relishing the feeling of the warm bubbles rising in his chest from Mello assuring him that he really didn't mean what he said in the letter, that he was secretly relieved that Matt had found him. And that feeling meant that it didn't matter to Matt that he had almost died that day or that he had felt the blood of a man who had been shot. All that mattered was that he had found Mello now and they were together and that nothing would be able to separate them again. He would never allow it, he couldn't live without Mello. He would rather die. 


	11. Chapter 11: Supporting Character

_Do you know that when I wrote this chapter I completely forgot that it's still winter in the timeline of things and didn't even bother to check if it would actually be warm in Los Angeles? That's how great I am at continuity XD. But I didn't go back to change anything because I like it the way it is. Sorry if it bothers you. Also sorry if you don't like my first and probably only original character in this story. I'm not even usually brave enough to use them in fanfiction, but I thought I'd give it a go to spice things up. Anyways I hope you enjoy how it turned out, please review and here is your Chapter Twelve: _

Matt finds LA to be a tacky sort of beautiful. The palm trees which he knows are real, because their leaves are smooth to the touch and can be peeled in two, still look too green and fake. The mountains on the horizon could be painted on or a movie green screen backdrop. All of LA could be a movie set actually. The tanned skinned fit locals in their designer clothes all extras hired to be mulling about in the background, acting like the part time models most of them really are. Matt's just a supporting character, and as for the main lead, it would be Mello of course, because Matt would put his money, if he had any, on him being the most interesting person in the large city.

He surely looks the part. Matt always knew that Mello had a thing for black but he never pegged him as a leather man. It's all he's bought since they've gotten to LA, came back to their dump of an apartment a few nights after they'd arrived with it, after Matt had finally slept all the jet lag away. He was clad in a tight vest and shiny pants, boots laced up tight. Before Matt could stop himself he started laughing at him. Mello still has his baby fat clinging to him despite his slowly increasing height and the hairs peeking out from the bottom of his vest and trailing down into his waistband. He's caught somewhere between man and boy and the look combined with the fury in his eyes, despite their intimidating gaze, kind of makes him ridiculous. Matt just can't help himself. But he pays for it, Mello swipes at him and slaps the smirk right off his face.

"You'd think you could afford to get us a better place if you're going to be running around in that get up." Matt says, using one hand to hold the tub of chocolate ice cream to his face and using the other to gesture to the cramped living room around him from his spot sitting on top of the freezer they'd squeezed into the corner.

"What's the fucking point in getting a ritzy ass place if we're only going to be sleeping here?! Besides it's my cash so I'll do what I want with it. Besides it's not that bad."

Matt begged to differ. There was a brown vinyl couch and armchair that they had picked up directly from someone's curb and cleaned, a few floor lamps, and a scuffed coffee table constantly covered with the two laptops they had bought, chocolate bar wrappers, and Matt's DS and playing cards. There was an archway that was so short Mello's head brushed against it leading into a kitchen filled with second hand appliances, including a fridge Matt was constantly trying to restock with real food as Mello only seemed to ever come home with more and more chocolate. Fuck, that's why he was holding this to his now swelling cheek instead of a real icepack! Even though he was supposedly so clever Matt knew that he was going to have to make all the practical decisions for the both of them to keep them alive.

The bedroom was the only thing he couldn't complain about it, even though it was by no means a luxury suite. It's small sure, the walls were black which he found kind of depressing because you couldn't even make out your own hand in front of your face in the dark, and the bed had no headboard, but it was theirs. It was theirs and Mello slept in his arms as always, digging his fingers into his skin when he had nightmares and cursing at Matt when the light of his DS hits his face when Matt plays it at night if he's tired of lying awake over thinking things. Matt takes these curses like compliments, shuts the thing off and chucks it across the floor before snuggling deep under the covers, cupping Mello's hipbones in his hands and rubbing his fingers over his ribcage and asking Mello if it bothers him. He tells him that it doesn't as long as Matt shuts the fuck up and goes to sleep but Matt can tell it relaxes him, his breathing evens out instead of hitching with fear in his sleep so long as Matt keeps his hands on him, and so he does. Even though he never initiates these touches, Matt hopes it never bothers Mello to be close to him.

But he's certainly not shy. The only bathroom is off their bedroom, tight with just a shower, the kind you swing back the plastic door and walk into. Matt always beats Mello to it the first few mornings, desperate to wipe away the cold sweats he's been getting at night even though it's January. Feeling the blood on his head of the man who got shot, it's fucked him up. He swears he can feel it trickling down his neck in the dark sometimes. But Mello's not a patient guy. Matt almost slips and falls when he hears the plastic bang against the wall and Mello's arm brushes his side as he reaches past him for the soap.

"You take too damn long and I'm not going to take a cold fucking shower! Oh don't look at me like that we've been in the bath together before!"

But Matt can't stop the pink from colouring his cheeks or he heat forming in his stomach when Mello's chest bumps into his back.

"You've still got shampoo in your hair idiot." Mello's hands scrub through the roots of his hair and Matt sighs. This is home. Be it small and cramped or dirty, Matt wouldn't have it any other way if it meant he would miss out on feelings like this. "I'm going out today alright? Today's the perfect day, I know where the guy I'm getting will be and how to get there, thanks to the tabs you've been keeping on him."

Matt's eyes closed in peace snap open. Since they'd gotten there Mello had gotten him to set up their computers and Matt had done all the hacking needed to access the programs they could use to track the movements of the mafia leader Mello wanted to hunt down. But he thought that it would take longer for Mello to come up with a well thought out plan and be ready to execute it.

"You're gonna... you're gonna take out that guy today huh? But you don't have to go by yourself, I can come to." Matt protests grabbing Mello's elbow but his friend jerks his hand off.

"I don't want you there because it just means I'll have to look after you, and you don't know how to shoot a gun. Which is the same reason why you sure as fuck won't be coming to see the mafia with me when I go to meet them either."

"What?! What the hell am I supposed to do then, just wait here all day for you to get back?"

"I don't care what the fuck you do! Go out and explore the city, play your stupid ass video games, clean the apartment, it doesn't matter to me so long as you don't get yourself into any trouble. You wanted to come with me and that's my condition let me do my thing and stay safe so I don't have to worry about you."  
>Matt grabs hold of his friend's fingers and pulls them away from his head, using them to turn himself around and Mello chest to chest.<p>

"Are you really not concerned at all that something could go wrong? What if you got hurt or worse and then you never came home, and then I would never know what happened to you? What would I do, what-"

Mello plants a firm kiss to the corner of Matt's mouth and then wraps his arms around the boy's shoulder's, pressing his face into his neck.

"Shut up and stop worrying so much you idiot. I'm never going to fucking let that happen, I know how to handle myself. You wait, I bet you I'll make it home before 6 o'clock."

Matt shivers as Mello turns the water off and squeezes his friend tighter.

"Do you swear? Swear to God so you have to do it!"

"I don't swear to God loser, that's blasphemy, but I'll swear on chocolate."

"That doesn't mean anything!"

"Don't you fucking know me at all? That means more than me swearing on my life!"  
>_<p>

After Mello loads his gun and puts it in his holster, the one that still makes Matt's stomach churn if he looks at it to longs, he wanders around the apartment and it reminds him of when he used to run out of things to do when his parents were away. Except for this time he wanted the person he was waiting for to come home, wanted it so bad that every minute that passed felt like it was half an hour. He plays every game he owns but none of them suck him into their world like they usually do. His stomach is aching but he's not hungry at all. His worry for Mello is filling him up like a large stone lodged in his gut.

He has this fear that he's going to get lost if he heads out for the city, the night in Moscow still weighing on the back of his mind, even though he knows this time the signs and directions will all be in English. But he has nothing else to do so he shoves the keys to the apartment in his pocket and heads out for a walk. He doesn't plan to go to the convenience store and buy cigarettes but it's where he ends up. He asks for the same brand of sobranie black Russians he and Mello tried together 3 years ago, not just because he's a sentimental fool but because he doesn't know what other types there are, and he doesn't want to look like an idiot in case the cashier squints at his fake ID a little harder.

When he lights up leaned against the bricks outside and the smoke fills his lungs, he swears he's sitting on his old windowsill again, it's the same feeling. The weight in his lungs dissolves the one in his stomach, takes the edge right off of his anxiety so it's not as sharp, so his bones don't feel so jangly. Even though the first few drags send him into a coughing fit, the burning can't beat the lightheaded bliss. He chain smokes his way till three, all the while thinking that if Mello catches a whiff of it on his clothes he's going to kill him, will make good on that old promise. _It will serve him right for making me wait up for him all day; he should have to fret over my wellbeing too. _

"Hey dude, would you mind if I bum a smoke?"

Matt looks up from fumbling with his lighter, that's the one thing he can't get the hang of, to take in the person standing in front of him. She's taller than him by a whole head, and she's got curly red and sort of messy hair, orange in shade compared to his auburn, and brown freckles practically covering her whole face. Her brown eyes seem to be challenging him to deny her, especially since he has to look up at her to meet them. She's wearing a blue and black plaid button up t-shirt and littler black shorts and she's kind of chubby, but mostly when he can look away from her gaze Matt notices her bare dirty feet.

"Uh yeah sure, here." He replies distractedly and digs into the packet to hand her one, lighting it for her first. To his surprise she catches it with her lips instead of her fingers.

"Black russians huh, are you some sort of rich boy?"

Matt laughs nervously. "No not all."

"Good, I wouldn't want to bum one of a rich person, their so judgemental."

"Are you homeless?" Matt was thinking it because of her dishevelled appearance but he had never planned on letting the words leave his mouth. But she didn't seem to mind; in fact she sort of looked a little flattered.

"Nah, I just don't like shoes, it feels nice to have the bare earth on your feet. You should try it sometime. I'm Andrea." She says reaching out to shake his hand.

"Uh I'm Matt... Matthew yeah."

He doesn't even know why he gives himself a nonexistent full name, but something about her intense stare is making him lose his train of thought.

"Matthew, that's kind of old fashioned huh, I like it. Do you live around here?" She asks.

"Yeah, in an apartment building nearby." Mello would murder him if he told anyone exactly where, it would be a breach in security. Andrea lets out a loud laugh, deeper than Matt expected.

"Well there are thousands of those. You look kind of young to be living on your own. I'm 18, and I just bought my first flat, just around the corner you know that short little retro looking building? I've lived in LA all my life but I couldn't stand living with my parents another day. They're republican assholes."

Matt hasn't spoken to a child or teenager with parents since before he went to Wammy's, and for some reason it makes him feel a little uncomfortable.

"Oh I'm 18 too! My best friend and I just decided to move out so we decided to split the rent. We're from... Boston." He says uncertainly.

"Huh you look younger than that, and you don't have an accent. But I guess it's just me making assumptions to think that everyone from there must. So you're almost like a tourist here huh? Do you want me to show you around? I have an audition tomorrow but I can spare today, I should take a break so I don't get too stressed."

"Uh yeah okay. I don't have anything going on either. An audition huh?"

"Yeah it's for a stupid little shampoo commercial. I know it's kind of corporate but they do dig redheads, and everyone has to start somewhere. I want to act in indie films."

"Indie films?" Everything she said felt slightly foreign to him. When was the last time he had a real conversation with someone close to his age that wasn't Mello or a Wammy's kid?

"Yeah you know, little independent projects? Films with real meaning. Maybe we could watch one at the theater down town later if you're up to it."

"Um sure okay. I think that would be fun."

And it was sounding fun if scary to Matt. It sounded like a true beginning to a fresh start, getting to know this strange city around him and its inhabitants. He would still be helping Mello with all of his plans to catch Kira of course, would still stay right by his side the whole way through, but wasn't he allowed to have something that was his too? Like a new friend, someone to keep him company and keep his mind occupied so he wouldn't have to feel so tense all the time. Things with Mello were always either fully action packed or entirely empty, and now he was forced to play the waiting and worrying game, but why should he have to? He had never thought that he had needed anything in his life that didn't directly revolve around Mello, but maybe now he would since his best friend was going to be so busy all the time. He could keep busy too he thought, he owed himself that sort of distraction. Anyways, it would be harmless.  
>_<p>

They never make it to the theater since when sunset and 6 o'clock approaches Matt tells Andrea that he has to go home and cook dinner, but Matt is sure he has walked the entirety of LA barefoot. He regrets letting Andrea take them off and put them in her canvas purse, wishes he would have argued her that he wouldn't be able to absorb the energy from the earth but rather the burning sensation of the sun fried concrete and asphalt. But here he is with his black and sore soles protesting as he paces around on the cool kitchen tiles, placing the pizza he heated in the oven on the table along with the chocolate covered strawberries and raisins he bought for Mello to snack on, figuring that he has to sneak in a bit of nutrition in the boys diet where he can.

Still , although Andrea sometimes lost him in the conversation he still had to admit enjoyed being out in the sunshine for a change as well as having new company, even if he did still find himself worrying about Mello. He liked that she held his hand when they walked together and how she carried oranges and apples around in her bag which they stopped and sat right down in the grass to snack on. He liked how open and honest she was, told him so many details about her life and didn't seem affronted by any questions he asked about them. While she did seem a bit idealistic and foolish, she seemed genuine in her everything she said, or at least she truly believed she was. She carried herself almost as confidently as Mello, and while she was intimidating, she didn't seem to judge anything he said. It was refreshing.

But now he's on the edge again, hovering near the door once the table is set, eyeing it so closely that when it finally bangs open he jumps practically a foot in the air. In comes Mello with a black garbage bag slung over his shoulder and a grimace on his face. Matt's happy to see that glare that he can't stop himself from running forward to embrace him, before pulling back not only from Mello shrugging him off, but from the smell clinging to him, the smell of blood that's still fresh in Matt's memory.

"Well, what happened?" He asks.

"What do think fucking happened? I did it! Just like I said and it's 5:45 right? So I'm a man of my word, open up the freezer instead of just standing around would you?"

Matt does, but catches the corner of the tightly tied bag before Mello can completely lower it in.

"Wait, what's in there?"

"A fucking chicken wing Matt, what do you think?! No don't open it you dumbass!"

Matt's already staring down in to the dark plastic. He can make out the shape of a hand, and the stink.

"Fuck," he whispers, before vomiting on the hardwood floor, almost slamming his fingers shut in the freezer as he closes it on his way to kneeling.

"Oh shit Matty, I told you not to! Ugh, I'll get the mop just go brush your teeth and sit down somewhere okay."

Matt listens this time around, even though his limbs are shaky and his vision blurry from the tears in his eyes, slumps down at the kitchen table. With the taste of toothpaste clinging to his tongue he's not hungry anymore, shoves the pizza Mello dishes him when he's done wiping up the floor far away from him.

"That's... the dude you killed right?" Mello nods. "Fuck Mells, I thought you were just going to shoot him not hack him into little pieces with a chain saw!"

"I did shoot him, and I didn't use a fucking chain saw but I needed proof for Rod Ross and his gang that I was the one who took him out for them to truly take me seriously. Fuck Matt, he was already dead, does it really make a difference?"

Matt watches Mello shoving strawberries in his mouth like their the last chocolate containing foods on earth and his upper lip curls in disgust.

"I just don't understand how you managed to stomach that I-"

"Hey! Hey have you been smoking?!"

"What? No why do you think that?" Matt asks nervously.

"Don't you dare fucking lie to me do you think I don't know what cigarettes smell like, it's fucking all over your clothes!" Mello exclaims, getting up from his seat to stomp around the table to grab the collar of Matt's shirt and pull him close to his face and inhaling. "Damn it! You fucking promised me that you were never going to do that again, do you want fucking lung cancer?!"

"Oh like you're allowed to lecture me on health with your diet and when you fucking murdered someone and cut them up to bits today?!"

"What does fucking cutting someone up have to do with it?! At least I never lie to you, I told you I had to kill him and we've already been over this, it's not fucking murder he was shitscum! He's probably murdered and done countless other things to people! I'm doing what needs to be done to avenge L."

"So you'll sink to any level you have to in order to accomplish that right? Levels L wouldn't dare sink to, in fact you know who you remind me of more than L right now?"

"Oh fuck no, don't you dare say-"

"Kira-"

The word is barely out before Mello's fist meets his nose. Matt feels his body crash from the chair and onto the floor, his already sick stomach flipping. His mind catches up to his body faster than he thought possible and he's raising his hands to block Mello's quick knuckles and aiming a kick to his friend's groin. All he gets in a groan as Mello just keeps landing strikes to his face and neck through the pain. Matt doesn't catch a break until he manages to elbow Mello's windpipe before kicking him off of him, landing a punch to Mello's eyes so he feels even before sprinting away to bedroom and then the bathroom and locking the door. But Mello recovers quickly and soon he's pounding on it. Matt leans his back up against it, panting and grabbing a wash cloth to plug the blood from pouring from his sore and possibly broken nose.

"Open this door right now you fucking coward!"

"You know what psycho I don't think I will!"

"I'll knock it down Matt I fucking swear!"

"Oh go huff and puff somewhere else you big tit!"

That earns a particularly hard slam against the door that sends him rocking forward, but it doesn't fall off its hinges. After what seems like ages the pounding stops and Matt hears something hit the floor, knows Mello is sitting on the opposite side of the door with his back pressed against it just like him, probably wondering how they're going to fix this too. They had plenty of scraps back in Wammy's, had even came to blows before, but Matt had never felt so vicious, like he had actually wanted to hurt him, to make him feel as hurt as he felt. He felt like Mello was pulling away from him, like ever since they left Wammy's and didn't have its restrictions placed on them anymore that he was morphing into a person that wasn't his best friend. Like he was doing it willingly too, putting just enough space between him and Matt so he didn't know him anymore while all the time making him close enough to do what he wanted by smoothing any complaints he had over with little kisses, little touches that Matt wasn't sure if he was the only one into or not. Neither of them were the type of people to admit they were wrong and apologize easily, but Matt sure as hell didn't feel like he wanted to be the one to do it tonight.

"Why are there black footprints all over the fucking floor?" Mello grumbles, finally breaking the silence.

"Oh. I went for a big walk to day, explored the city like you said. I think I know it pretty well now."

"And a fucking gnome stole your shoes?"

"Something like that." That shuts him right up for a few moments. Matt's never vague like Mello is, answers every question he's asked in detail.

"Did I break your nose? You should let me look at it, if we don't fix it if it is you'll look fucking uglier than before."

"I don't want to look at you, I'll throw up again."

"Then close your eyes dumb ass. Unlock the door." Matt sighs but does. He doesn't want to wait in here all night, doesn't have the energy to prove that sort of point. And he does want to look at Mello, wants to see if the blue fires of his eyes are burning low again and if they're okay. They have to be okay.

Mello lifts his chin once he steps in front of him, pulls the bloody cloth away and exchanges it for a clean one he wets in the sink and wiping away the dried crust gently, so it barely stings.

"Mhmph, I think it's safe to say you won't need any plastic surgery, too bad because then we'd really be true LA citizens."

Matt can't help it, he cracks up laughing because of how serious Mello sounds before groaning because the movement hurts his nose. Mello smiles and leans down to kiss him, still avoiding hitting the sore spots but managing to do it roughly, shifting Matt so that he's straddling his legs and holding him under his arms, fingers gently rubbing his rib cage. Matt knows he's being taken in again, knows that Mello is using the kiss to get him to forgive him but he finds that both his heart and his groin are making it impossible for him to care. He gets lost in it, wrapping himself tightly around Mello's waist and neck and passing his tongue into Mello's mouth, which the boy lets him do before forcing it out with his own and biting down on Matt's lip who sighs pressing his legs tighter. He can feel Mello's grin as he runs his mouth over Matt's jaw and down his neck, biting there too as his hands find their way under Matt's shirt to trace his sides, before he hits a forming bruise that causes Matt's groan of pleasure to one of pain. He pulls back then to Matt's extreme disappointment. Things were getting further than they usually did.

"Fuck you bruise easy, I didn't even think I got you there."

"Hey I got in some shots of my own too! You've got my hand on your cheek." Matt laughs, tracing the outline.

"Well I don't fucking care, at least we'll look roughed up to meet the mafia tomorrow."

"So I'm coming now huh?"

"Well I guess it would be easier for you to help me with the hacking stuff if you know what's going the fuck on. But you have to act like you're just my lackey okay, they can't know there's anything else between us."

_What is between us? _Matt doesn't think he should push his luck and actually ask. He's gotten far enough that Mello changed his mind about not letting him come and that he won't have to spend another day like this one waiting up for him and worrying. As fun as it turned out, he'd rather keep an eye on Mello, to make sure that the mafia doesn't change him into something he's not, something he's kind of scared he already has the potential inside him to become. But it seemed like he was going to have to keep waiting for the day Mello was ready to answer that question. To just keep quiet and enjoy the little bits and pieces he caught until that day came. He tries to convince himself that it's not so bad, that he can live without the answer and that he'll be satisfied with the way their friend ship is without it. But the truth is he's not so sure how long he can wait. Mello's patience might be worse, but tonight when he told Mello he was like Kira he could feel his wearing thin. He's stretching himself out, stretching himself so he can live with every decision Mello makes that he doesn't agree with, every compromise so he can justify staying with him and loving him without getting as much in return to himself. He never knew how hard it was to be the supporting character. It's the toughest role to play.


	12. Chapter 12: Last Lover

_Hey guys! So I wasn't sure when I wanted Matt and Mello's actual relationship to start. For a while I thought it would be closer to when the Kira case resumes, when their like 19? But then that made me sad because they would have such a short amount of time to be together together. So now I'm thinking that 17 seems like a good age to start. I can live with that so I hope you can too. Anyways this is definitely going to be the longest chapter I've ever written, so I really hope that you all like it. Please review if you would like to, here is your Chapter 12:_

Matt has nightmares about Kira. Well not about him exactly, it would be hard to be frightened of someone when you don't know what they look like or anything about them. The only people Matt had ever been truly frightened of we're his father and those men in the alleyway of Moscow. And sometimes Mello. But mostly now, he's frightened _for _him. That's really what the dreams are about, nightmares about Mello being killed by Kira. He's known it's a possibility, has considered it since L and Watari died, but it hadn't felt as real or as close then. He doesn't know why he's letting it keep him awake now. He's scared to go sleep, doesn't want to see Mello clutching his chest another time, slumping over with lifeless eyes. A heart attack of course.

So maybe he does know. When the lists of names and pictures of criminals started being posted on the internet around 7 months ago, Mello had ordered him to hack into the sites to take them down, but more and more popped up every day. It was impossible to find them all, he wasn't even close. And Mello wasn't any closer to finding Kira either; they didn't have any leads at all, which led Mello to become more and more frustrated and further involved in the activities of the mafia. Although he had done them 'a huge favour' according to Rod Ross by taking out the rival gang leader, they still didn't fully trust him and weren't loyal enough to follow him in his quest to capture Kira. Yet, Mello would remind Matt constantly. He just figured he would have to do more. But more at what cost? It didn't appear to be bothering Mello on the outside the tasks, the murders the mafia had him performing. Sure he was thin as ever, building up muscle mass slowly as he did countless sit-ups and push ups on their bedroom floor each night, and he still slept fitfully, kicking and clawing at Matt through whatever awful dreams he was having but this was nothing new. But every day it seemed like there was a new layer of thicker skin surrounding him, a layer Matt had to fight tooth and nail to claw to, to feel close to him again.

He barely touched Matt lately aside from when he clung to him when they slept. At first Matt chalked it up to them just spending most of their days at the mafia's hideout when he couldn't, but even when they were at home it seemed like he leaned away from any contact. It had been like this before, he tried to remind himself, when the Kira Case first began with L, so he shouldn't be alarmed, it was probably just stress. But it still drove him crazy. He felt like Mello was miles away rather than just on the chair opposite the couch. This wasn't what bothered Matt the most though surprisingly. What did was that Mello had stopped going to church.

When they had first moved to LA Mello had picked one downtown for them to go to, every Sunday without fail. It was the one day he told the mafia that he couldn't do any jobs, that they simply couldn't make it. Despite Matt's years of atheism he still dragged him along to sit next to him in the pew where he would have to fight to stay awake when Mello stood up and then kneeled and then stood up and kneeled down again. Still, even though Matt kind of found the Catholic form to be ridiculous, there was something beautiful about Mello praying. There was a look of peace on his face that Matt never saw at any other time. A look that kind of spoke of surrender, and it must have been one because Matt is positive that there's no one in this world who Mello would kneel before aside from God, not for all the money in the world.

It had been a shock to him two weeks ago when he had woken up late on Sunday, at about noon. Sure they always had late nights but that had never stopped Mello from waking him up at the crack of dawn to get dressed nice for Mass before. At first he had thought he must be sick, but Mello cursed at him loudly when he woke him up by placing his hand on his forehead to find out his temperature.

"The fuck are you doing Matt?" He groaned, pushing his arm back and rolling over on his side away from him.

"Sorry it's just we overslept! It's Sunday you know, we're going to miss the whole service."

"...We're not going."

"What?! Are you feeling okay?"

"I feel just fucking peachy, better if you hadn't woke me up with your damn gross clammy hands."

"So... why aren't we going then?"

"Because I don't fucking want to okay?! Go back to bed, you're the one who wants to sleep in all the time."

Matt doesn't want to go to bed now. He's wide awake, this is so fucking out of character for Mello that he feels like he's been shocked out of sleep. He feels anxiety clawing its way into the pit of his stomach, hanging on the way it usual does and dragging on the floor like a ball and chain as he pads in to the kitchen to make breakfast. As he pops bread in the toaster he picks up the phone, wondering if Andrea's even awake right now since she sleeps even longer than he does. He's called her a lot lately when he's worried about Mello, before only when he was out of the apartment but he thinks it's safe to say that he's asleep. He would kill him if he found out he had mentioned him to someone, even without any specifics and Andrea doing most of the talking. That's what he liked about her the most really, the part of her that other people probably hated, her ability to chat his ear off. She took all his worries off of his mind by filling it up with the most minimal details about her life, every word of the script she was memorizing, every plot of the movies she was watching, what she had bought, what she was wearing. She was an endless supply of information that wouldn't cause him any extra stress, and it was a great comfort.

"What's up loser?" Very to the point Andrea is. It's how he imagines Mello would answer the phone if they ever talked on it. Except for the 'loser' would probably be changed to a 'fucker'.

"Ah nothin' really. Just woke up, making food. Surprised you're awake actually. My best friend is being really grumpy, like a particularly large stick has been shoved up his ass this morning."

"Didn't you say that he always acts like that? I am capable of getting up early you know, unlike you rich boys I do work. Seriously are you two drug dealers or something? Because I wouldn't want to be friends with a drug dealer, that's really shitty and immoral selling people drugs so you can turn them into addicts and profit off their misery. It's disgusting."

"Haha, no not drug dealers. My friend just has some rich parents." _We do work with some though. _"He's being particularly grumpy today though, like it's different. He's been stressed I guess, but it's weird for him."

"You know he honestly sounds like a real pain. If you want my advice I try my best to surround myself only with people who give off positive energy. Any negative vibes can really poison you, like those types of people can make your life turn toxic. I still think you should come live with me instead, it's lonely over here _Matthew._"

Andrea had been making comments like this lately and it was the only thing that really threw him off about her and made him uncomfortable.

"Nah I could never not live with him. We've been like... like brothers since we were little."

"So you've said, but it sounds more like you're putting more effort into the relationship to me and that's not fair. You don't talk about him like he's your brother, you talk about him like you're in love with him. Believe me Matthew, I know all about unrequited love, like that's how all of my relationships have gone and it's a terrible thing to be trapped in. It happens when you're too giving of a person, like I would just give and give and give and they would just take and take and take. But I took control of my own life again by knowing when I should leave, and now I'm so much happier."

Matt tunes the last part of what she says out because he's still focused on her first two sentences.

"What! No I'm not in love with him that's ridiculous he's... he's beyond that. And I'm not putting in more effort or anything he's just like that, he's always been like that. I understand him and he understands me. We're fine."

"You know this is one of those things that come in stages. You're in like the denial stage right now like I used to be. And then one day you're going to snap, you're going to be in the anger stage, telling him you want something more and he's just not going to give you it because that's not who he is. Then you'll be in like the bargaining stage where you fight with him about it, offering him things to get to where you want but you're not going to get there. And then you'll cry and mope around for awhile and then finally build a bridge and get over it. And then hopefully you'll realize what you're truly worth and find someone who actually compliments you, someone who values and respects you as a person and treats you like a best friend but also a lover. Someone who you can really talk with honestly and get advice from. You know, kind of like with me right now."

This is one of the only times he truly hasn't liked where a conversation with Andrea has gone. He likes it when she drones on about herself, not when they focus on the problems he's trying to escape, aside from her being totally wrong about them. He shouldn't have opened the phone call that way, should steer it back to her.

"Uh thanks but really that's not what's going on. I'm really not in lo-"

"Who the fuck are you talking too so damn loudly?"

Matt whirls around to face Mello standing in the archway to the kitchen, dressed for the day in his usual leather and feather lined winter coat, looking absolutely pissed. Matt hits the off button on the phone automatically.

"Not interested! Not interested at all in what you're selling, thank you has a nice day!" He exclaims, slamming the phone down on the counter. "Fucking telemarketers huh?"

Mello raises one eye brow and reaches around Matt for the door of the fridge, pulling it open and showing chocolate bars into the pockets of his coat. Matt is always shocked that he can fit so many.

"And you told them to have a nice day, you fucking chipper little shit. They'll probably call back here. Hey look, I'm going out to get a job done early, so don't wait up okay."

"Uh alright. Fine. I won't."

"Good." He slams his door on the way out.

It's just him and the apartment again. It's been like this a lot lately, just him and the apartment and his thoughts. _And Andrea, _he thinks as the phone starts ringing but he decides to ignore it. It may piss off the only friend he has aside from Mello, whose pissed at him all the time anyways, but maybe it will get him through whatever 'stages' he has to go through faster, right to the parts where he accepts these horrible feelings of worry, isn't afraid of them anymore. But he still can't figure out how that would be possible. No matter how many times he pictures Mello dying, it petrifies him. They're lives are so closely intertwined that it would mean death for Matt too, he would never live without him. And that scares the shit out of Matt too, scares him most of all maybe. Even more than how his best friend is turning in to somebody else. Somebody tougher and harder and even more closed off, somebody entirely unable to let Matt in. Someone who isn't capable of ever loving him back.

_

Matt wants to get Mello something big for his 16th birthday, even if it's with his own money. He deserves an extravagant present after the crazy year they've had, their first year away from Wammy's house making their way on their own together in the world. Something that's as cool as Matt thinks he is.

They both have fake licenses to match their fake IDs, but they don't have a car. The 1968 Chevrolet Camaro RS/SS might not be the black mafia-esque car that he can picture Mello in, but he figures something red and classic was the next best thing. It's second hand but he pays to have it fixed up, figures it's worth it if Mello will love it like he prays he does. And it's traditional isn't it, at least in the US for upper class kids, getting a car for your 'sweet 16'? Wasn't that what they called it? It's what Mello would have gotten if they both had lived the lives of children with parents, children who weren't geniuses, normal lives. Maybe even earlier with the lifestyle Mello's parents had lived, a lifestyle Matt could never hope to dream of had he gone on living with his own parents.

Even though there's no way that they ever would have crossed paths had fate not twisted their lives just such, Matt still likes to fantasize about it from time to time. Them meeting in a normal setting and growing up together as normal best friends, without all this weight on their shoulders. What would be different? Would Mello still be as hard to deal with? Would he still trail after him like a lost puppy? Would they ever have kissed? Would Mello be able to love him in that alternate world, love him in the way Matt secretly wanted so bad.

_It's stupid to dwell on it, _Matt admonishes himself on Mello's actual birthday, when he drives the car carefully into the underground parking lot beneath their apartment building, parking far away from the other cars to avoid any damage so that it will be in pristine condition when he takes his friend down to see it. _This is the way things are and you just have to do your best to work with them. _And he was trying to work with them, he was trying something tonight whether he wanted to admit it or not. He had told Mello that morning that he wouldn't be back till the evening, and the boy had swore at him that he didn't care. But now Matt would walk up there with the keys wrapped all nicely up with a ribbon, show Mello the car, and take him out for a ride in it, maybe out to dinner if he would agree. He didn't like being in public much, but Matt hoped he would. It was pretty goddamn romantic; he had to admit that to himself even if he wouldn't fully admit his feelings. He was being pretty fucking sappy, so sappy he almost grossed himself out.

But he didn't, he was too excited to. His palms were sweating as he rode the elevator up to their floor, as he played with the keys in his hand. He couldn't wait to see the look on Mello's face.

There's something off when he opens the apartment door even if he can't tell right away what it is. It almost feels like there's a different smell to it, like when you enter someone else's home for the first time and there's actually a distinct sense unlike in your own home because you're so used to it, because you smell like it too. It's your home. That was the problem. There was something about the apartment tonight that made it feel like it wasn't really Matt's home.

That's when he notices the shoes on the doormat, the shoes that are most definitely not his or Mello's. Their black stilettos. And that's when he hears the sounds coming from the bedroom and he knows exactly what's going on, it's like a wave crashing over him, but it doesn't stop him from going over and pushing the door open.

"Mello?" He asks and his voice cracks as he sees his best friend tangled up deep in the sheets with a bleach blonde woman he doesn't know who shrieks when she sees him. Mello just looks annoyed.

"Fuck Matt! Can't you knock I-"

But Matt has already slammed the door shut again. He chucks the keys to the car on the coffee table, and goes out in the hall to the stair case that's roped off. It's easy for him to dismantle the fire alarms on the wall so that they won't go off when he opens the door to the roof.

It's cold up there, it's December so of course it is but he doesn't have his coat. He lights his cigarette and looks out over all the city glowing brightly in the dark, all the lights blurring through the tears blurring through his eyes, and LA is just like a movie again, he realizes, almost laughing as he kicks the brick ledge in front of him. Just like some stupid fucking romantic comedy where the woman realizes her husband is cheating her so she considers jumping over the ledge but decides to reinvent herself instead. Actually that sounds more like some terribly acted made for TV drama but it doesn't matter because that's not Matt's life. That's not his husband down there, it's his best fucking friend whose birthday it is and he doesn't have any obligation to Matt. He can sleep with whoever he fucking wants; he shouldn't be so selfish to think otherwise. He doesn't know how long he's up there before the door to the roof slams open again, turns already knowing it's Mello, standing there with the wind blowing his hair out of his burning eyes, panting as if he's ran up the stairs. Matt wonders if he knows that his vest is unbuttoned underneath his winter coat.

"Hey, what the hell are these?!" Mello shouts into the night, holding the keys up as he strides over to where he is, his gaze flickering nervously back and forth between the ledge and Matt's feet. "What are you fucking doing up here anyways?"

"Nothing. Just having a smoke."

"I thought you quit." Mello says, almost accusatorily.

"Why do you care?" Matt mutters.

"Well fuck then, guess I don't. Did you buy a car?"

"Yeah it's your birthday present." Mello actually looks dumbfounded by this. After what Matt saw, it's almost better than him being excited. He'll take anything to ease the edge off of this sting.

"That's... you didn't have to fucking by me a car that's pretty big for some silly birthday. I thought you forgot actually."

"How the fuck would I forget?! We've only been celebrating it together for the past 10 years!"

"Okay fuck, you're the one who wanted to go out today, so I just thou-"  
>"I was getting it ready for you! So we could like... you know go out for dinner and stuff. To one of those little Russian restaurants to get the food you like... The weird soup you know the s-so..." Matt trails off. He feels like his throat is closing off. He'll be damned if he cries.<p>

"The solyanka?"

"Yeah!"

"That's... fuck okay well we can go now then, I'm fucking hungry let's go now." Mello says, grabbing on to Matt's sleeve but his feet stay firmly planted.

"Who was that girl?"

"Oh her? She's just some fucking hooker I ran into. I just wanted to finally get fucking laid on my birthday honestly. It wasn't great." Mello's voice is flat and even, like it's the most causal thing in the world. It's Matt's turn to be dumbfounded.

"So you... decided with a hooker mhmm, yeah okay makes perfect fucking logical sense just dandy yep."

"Matty, what the fuck you're acting weirder than usual?"

"Isn't that like... a sin for you or something?" Matt asks.

"Matt, I'm in the _mafia_. I don't think that's the only sin on my fucking confession list. Fuck, what are you hung up on, let's go now."

"Actually you know what? I'm honestly not feeling fucking well right now, sorry. You should just take that girl out to dinner instead; impress her with your new ride and all that. I'll just stay here and lie down or something." Matt's voice doesn't sound like his own to him. It's too high pitched and tense.

"You want me to take the hooker to dinner?"

"Yeah. She'd probably be thrilled that's probably never happened to her before. Don't call her a hooker that's demeaning."

"I fucking paid her money to fuck me! She's a hooker, that's what their fucking called. I don't want to leave you if you're feeling weird, fuck you're... you're freaking me out Matty."

"Nah it's your birthday, I don't want to ruin your night. I seriously just want to be alone right now too."

"Are you sure?"

"Fucking positively sure. Go, test out the car. Get your ugly mug out of my face!" Matt says, forcing out a small laugh and pushing Mello's shoulder.

"Well... Okay. I'll be fucking back in like, less than two hours though okay? I'll bring you back some food so fucking stay put?" Mello asks, heading back inside.

"Yeah, I will." Matt whispers, finally allowing his tears to fall when he hears the door close. "Fuck you Mello!" He sighs, reaching for his pocket and pulling out his cell phone.

"Hey loser! What happened the other day when you hung up on me? That was kind of rude..."

"Hey Andrea, sorry I got caught up in some dumb stuff... I was just wondering, do you want to go on a date with me sometime?"

"Oh Matty! That would actually be awesome, but are you okay? You sound kind of like you're crying." Matt cringes at her address. Only Mello calls him Matty.

"Uh, yeah I'm fine. I just have the flu I think which is why I have to go now, but I'll call you when I feel better so we can set something up okay?"

"Oh yeah of course, I hope you feel better soon! You know I actually was thinking about asking you out but I was still working up the courage to do it? I thought you were so hot when we first met and then when we hung out and I got to know you I thought hey, this guy just might be perfect for me! I'm so happy!"

"Oh yeah? Me too Andrea. I'll talk to you soon."

He goes back downstairs to the apartment, relieved to see that the hooker's pointy heels are gone. But the air still smells different; it's still not a home that belongs to him anymore, the home of the stranger that Mello now is. He doesn't understand him anymore. Doesn't understand why he would turn to a hooker to fulfill any feelings he has with what he and Matt have going. He must know how Matt feels about him right? Must read it in the way he talks and looks at him, in the way they've touched? Has Mello really been faking it all this whole time? Did he just finally tire of using it as a tactic to get Matt to stay? He's not sure what it will for him to get comfortable here again. He's not sure what it will take for him to feel at home in this room, or at home with himself, or at home with Mello.

_You said that you would always look out for me you dick, _Matt thinks, flopping down on to the couch and curling tightly into a ball, hugging his knees to his chest. _What the hell happened to that?  
>_<em>

Matt's birthday goes a lot better than Mello's. On the morning of his 17th Mello has placed a box beneath his pillow, a small brown box which he opens with the boy leaning back on the pillows looking more nervous than he has in quite some time, but he doesn't have to be because Matt grins when he opens them. The goggles are white with orange lenses- the same kind that the fighter pilots wear in his favourite video game.

"No way! Dude, where did you find these?"

"A fucking nerdy ass comic book store downtown. You have to know I fucking give a shit about you since I set foot in there, it was hideous."

"I thank you for that then!" Matt laughs, blushing. "These are seriously sick!" He puts them on and smiles at Mello who to his relief through the orange tint smiles back.

"Fucking right. I got something else too, kind of for both of us. Just this old record player I saw there, I figured we could go buy some records sometime for it. You need to hear something other than the fucking Legend of Zelda theme, seriously broaden your disgusting ass taste."

"Ah it's my birthday dude, could we lay off the insults for 24 hours?" Matt doesn't actually want him to though. This is the most like themselves they've been acting around each other since the night on the roof, and it's a relief.

"Hey I bought you a fucking awesome present, that's all you're entitled too okay! Don't push your luck."

They spend the day lounging around the apartment playing video games and pigging out and Matt feels almost comfortable again, until Mello starts talking about stuff they need to do at the hideout tomorrow. He hates being around the mafia more than usual lately, hates watching how well Mello fits right in to their culture and language well he sticks out like a sore thumb. He tells Mello that he thinks he's going to stay home again, sneaks in a call to Andrea to let her know he can finally go on that date he promised her, the one that he's been dreading. But he's got to get over Mello somehow and this is the only idea he has right now about how to do it. It's sort of a weird revenge plan in a way too, if Mello can make decisions without telling him then so can he. He knows he's seen other hookers since the first and girls members of the mafia know. He just can't let him know just how badly it kills him.  
>_<p>

"I had just the best time tonight! The very best time, you picked just the right movie and vegan place, it was so great. Hey do you want to come back to my flat? I actually cleaned it just for you today, I promise." Andrea giggled as they exited the theater, having seen some foreign French film that Matt had no clue what was going on in because he couldn't keep up with the awful subtitles. He didn't know how he had stayed awake.

"Uh yeah sure, that would be good." He replied distractedly, all the while wondering just how he was going to handle this. He hadn't even kissed Andrea yet and she seemed eager to be moving forward. It was the direction he wanted to head, but he wasn't sure about it going this fast.

The flat isn't exactly clean, but compared to his and Mello's place its spick and span. The bedroom is painted a bright blue with fluffy cartoon like clouds on the walls that Matt takes in with wide eyes.

"Did you paint these?"

"Yeah, I'm not actually allowed to paint the walls according to my lease, but I couldn't stand not spicing up the room. I figure I'll have time to paint over them again once I move out, you're not going to tell on me are you?" Andrea asks teasingly sitting down on the yellow bedspread. "Hey why are you standing so far away? Come here."

She pats the space on the twin sized mattress beside her and he sits down, eyeing her nervously from his peripheral vision. He thinks that Andrea is beautiful, but he wouldn't know the first thing about touching her. He's never touched anyone but Mello and even sitting next to her this way with this heavy tension filling the air feels off. It turns out he doesn't have to make a move at all, as usual Andrea is straight forward, she reaches out and strokes his cheek with the back of her hand, leans in slowly to press her lips lightly to his. Matt feels nothing. It's soft and not unpleasant, but it doesn't make him want to move, doesn't make him want to do anything.

"Is this okay?" She whispers, voice breathy and high and _girl. Girls. _Matt doesn't know the first thing about girls, doesn't know if there's anything to know, doesn't know if they're really different from him at all.

"It's perfect." He lies just to see her smile. "But I'd like to take things slow. Could we just lay here and talk for tonight?"

"Wow! You're so old fashioned and romantic! Of course we can, I don't mind that at all. We have a lot of time. I've never actually had a guy ask me that before, but then again you've always struck me as a bit unique, a bit different. In a good way I mean."

"Different huh?" He sighs, following her lead as she leans back to rest her head against the pillows, but she rolls over so that it's on his chest instead. He wonders if she takes notice that she can't feel his heartbeat. That it hasn't changed from beating at its normal pace at all, that she doesn't make him nervous or excited because she's just Andrea. She's just his friend. And Mello isn't anymore apparently. "I suppose that's fair."

He wonders how hurt she would be if she knew, but maybe she already did. She was the one who had suggested that he was in love with Mello, had caused him to admit it to himself in the first place. Still was it fair to her? Wasn't he sort of doing to her almost exactly what Mello had done to him? Taking advantage of her feelings for him and using it as an outlet for his frustrations? He knew that it couldn't be right, but he couldn't find it in himself to truly care. He had to do something to pass this agonizing time; he hadn't truly given up on Mello. He was just waiting for him to realize that he must have some feelings for him too. There was no way they could share what they had if he didn't. It hurt that he hadn't been Mello's first lover. It stung so bad each and every time he relieved the moment of walking into the apartment and seeing the shoes on the floor in his mind, the pain didn't seem to be fading at all. But he could live with it, he could still wait. He may not have been Mello's first lover but he was going to be his last. He didn't care how long it would take.

Both him and Mello forget all about the record player for almost an entire year. It's easy to see how it happens as their both so busy all the time, cruising around the city doing jobs for the mafia in Mello's new, old now, ride. Matt knows he secretly calls the car 'baby' since he heard him do it once but knows now after getting punched in the face for doing it once not to mock him for it, however tempting it may be. Still it's hilarious how he treats the car better than anything else. He bought plastic seat covers for it to avoid staining the seats and Matt's certain it's the most practical least glamorous thing he's ever done in his life.

There is a lot that can get on the seats though, the blood from Mello's clothes. Matt's never there when the murderers take place of course, Mello knows he would never want to be and that he would hurl. He's the getaway driver, but there's no heart pounding silver screen action in it. Just a knot in his gut and a lump plaguing his throat. He can never look at Mello on these rides, concentrates as hard as he can on the road ahead and ignores the smell from the bags in the back seat. Mello always proves to the mafia that he was the one to take the rival gang members out, he's collecting a larger hit list and stronger loyalty. Matt would never ask how he does it or what happens to the bodies after he presents them. He doesn't want to know.

The rest of their days are spent quietly. They relax and unwind and try to forget their days at the hideout at home, they play video games and cards, and have even started to play soccer on the rooftop, even though it's dangerous. They like the thrill, running so close to the edge, preventing the ball from falling over the edge lest it strike someone in the temple at impossible speed and kill them. Matt never wants to play up there at night, says it's where he draws the line when it really just reminds him of Mello's birthday. So they explore the city instead. Matt's pretty sure they've been to every Russian bar and restaurant in the city, asks Mello for the 500th time that if he loves Russia so much why didn't they just stay there.

"Russian politics? Fucking awful. Russian economy? Fucking embarrassing. Russian food and drink? There's nothing fucking better on this earth. If Catholics could marry solyanka, I would. "

_You're barely even Catholic anymore, _Matt thinks to himself. _Pretty fucking sure you've broken all of the ten commandments. _

Mello still sleeps with prostitutes. Matt knows it because every once and awhile one of them will forget something in the apartment. A tube of lipstick in the bathroom, a pack of condoms in the bedroom. Little traces reminding him and taunting him of the things Mello does when he's alone, the things he craves which they never talk about. He just has to try not to think about it.

Matt still sees Andrea. He takes her out to all of the cute little vegan places, all the critically acclaimed foreign movies and independent productions of plays, all the outdoor music festivals when Mello is busy with the jobs that he can't handle being there for. Aside from having no feelings for her aside from friendship, he's almost certain he's the best boyfriend in the world. And she doesn't seem to mind, doesn't question about why he wants to wait to have sex, why he hasn't done anymore but kiss her at her initiation. She thinks it's "beautifully authentic" that he's more interested in understanding her soul than her sex, that he knows he doesn't have to touch her to know her, whatever the hell that means. _As long as she's happy, _he always reassures himself, _as long as she's happy it can't truly hurt her. _

He's always a little bit nervous being in Andrea's neighborhood with Mello and he can't figure out why. He's kept these parts of his life so separate that he thinks it could somehow be disastrous if they ever crossed. But it's such a large city, he tries to tell himself that it would have to be some sort of freak accident if they did.

Mello sees the record store on their way home from the bar when he remembers.

"Hey! We fucking never even bought the records for your present did we? We should do it now!" He exclaims, and pulls Matt by the hood of his vest inside. It's dark and cool in there, little floor lamps lighting the rows and rows of boxes of records arranged by decades on the shelves.

"Do you even know what you're looking for?" Matt laughs, watching Mello overturn boxes and pull records out of their sleeves, keeping an eye out for whatever poor employee has a shift tonight to certainly stomp over all huffy and yell at them.

"Of course! Fucking Kino!"

"Now, is 'fucking' apart of their band name or did you add that embellishment?"

"No, fuck you, you dickwad!" Mello's cheeks are slightly flushed and Matt wonders if he's a bit tipsy from the drinks he's had. He always thought Mello would be an angry drunk, but he just gets clumsy and adds even more swear words to his vocabulary.

"Hey Matthew! That you?" It's not Mello who calls him, it's Andrea, striding over them looking her happy go lucky self as usual, her hippie satchel swung over her shoulder and her white dress grazing the floor, her bare toes poking out from underneath them as she stands on them to kiss his cheek. "I didn't know if you knew this store, I was going to show you this place next time but I guess you found it on your own! Hey, is this the famous best friend? I was wondering when I would get to meet you!"

She sticks her small hand out to Mello, who stares at it, stares at her, completely deadpan. For some reason Matt gets it into his head that he might smack her, is going to pull her arm down and shield her from Mello with his body. But to his shock Mello takes her hand, shakes it firmly, like their business associates or something. _Tipsy. He must be tipsy. _

"Who the fuck are you?" He asks, letting go of her hand. His voice is so even it makes Matt afraid all over again. How is he going to sell this one?

"What?! Matthew seriously, don't tell me I'm you're dirty little secret or something?" Andrea giggles, and Mello looks at her with wide eyes like he's never seen a girl laugh before.

"Matthew?" He mouths to Matt with raised eyebrows.

"I'm Matty's girlfriend! Andrea? Seriously has he actually never talked about me before? We've been dating for almost a year now. He's told me all about you."

"Oh he has, has he?" Mello says, and he's not looking at Andrea anymore, it's like he's not even there his gaze is piercing through Matt so strongly he has to look away, but not into Andrea's confused eyes either, not at either of them. He can't. He settles for the floor.

"Yeah! He says you two are like brothers, like inseparable! Didn't you two grow up together in Boston? I would love to go there someday; I hear it's a beautiful city! Very historic too."

"Oh yeah. We had some fucking crazy times in Boston didn't we _Matty_? But he's never mentioned you to me, pretty fucking weird huh? What's up with that huh _Matty_?" Matt doesn't miss the change in his voice, the chipper tone that he's using and knows that he's making fun of Andrea who's too clueless to tell. And then there's the underlining tension, the kind Mello uses to outline his words so that their like sharp jagged stones even when he's just warming up. He knows he's going to be torn into as soon as Andrea's gone.

"Oh do you call him that too?! He gets all blushy whenever I do it, he's so cute! Yeah that is weird, but I guess he just wanted to keep things about us private for awhile; he's been keen on taking things real slow, the gentleman. But now that I'm out of the bag, we should all grab dinner together sometime! I would love to get to know you too Mello since you're so important to him! Haha, you know when I first met him and he mentioned you, the way he talked I thought that you were his lover or something and that I was out of luck!"

Mello laughs too, but it's deep and harsh and false.

"Oh fuck yeah, we should definitely all grab dinner. I could tell you some stories about Matt that would make your head spin."

Matt looks up at Mello his eyes pleading. He knows exactly what's going to happen next.

"Oh really?! Like what? Was he a cute little kid? I've always pictured him as kind of pudgy like me!" Andrea teases, poking Matt in the elbow.

"Oh he was fucking adorable! But you know, kind of too sad to be cute, with what happened to his parents at all."

"Mello..." Matt says, but it comes out as a quiet whisper.

"His parents? Aren't they back in Boston?"

"Oh...Oh I'm so sorry fuck! I guess he hasn't told you huh?"

"Told me what?"

"You know, how his parents were kind of fucking abusive, he had a real complex relationship with his dad who was a real asshole. Ever wonder how he got those fucking weird little scars on his stomach? Their cigarette burns. But then they died in that tragic car accident, so he didn't have to fucking worry about it anymore, came to live with me. Yep, we've been inseparable ever since, he fucking tells me _everything."_

For what Matt believes is probably the first time in her life, Andrea has nothing to say.

"I uh... I actually have to go, so I'll call Matt and talk to you guys later I guess. Have a good night!" She doesn't smile when she exclaims it, her facial expression doesn't match her happy voice and the hurt in her eyes is like a slap in the face to Matt. The expression doesn't belong on her face. It's so wrong to watch her leaving with it, walking away with it up the street. How is he going to make this right?

"I can't believe you." He says to Mello, walking away from him and leaving the store and running up the street the opposite way that Andrea left. He knows Mello will beat him back to the apartment with the car but he doesn't care. He just needs a little bit of time to run away from it all, even if it's only for a few moments.

Mello is on the couch when he gets home, looking drunker than when he left him in the store but more awake too, more alert and more angry. His eyes are burning Matt alive.

"What the fuck was that?!" He yells at him before Matt can even close the door.

"I should be the one fucking asking you that! How could you do that to me? How could you tell her that?! What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

"What the fuck is wrong with me?! You've been seeing some random ass hippie cunt for almost a year behind my back and you want to know what the fuck is wrong with me?" Mello's up and standing now, staring Matt down as he paces around the back of the couch.

"Hey! Her name is Andrea, don't talk about her like that! She's the fucking sweetest girl on the planet! I met her after we first got here and she was nice to me when you were off doing that first job. I was lonely okay?!"

"You were lonely?! I'm here all the fucking time, we're together practically 24/7 and you're fucking lonely?! Damn it, do you mean horny?! Did you fuck her?! In between giving her information about me that could get me killed!" Mello shouts.

"No I fucking didn't fuck her and I didn'! I've never slept with her, I couldn't. She's just like... my friend but I just needed someone..."

"You have me! You've always fucking had me, it's always just been you and me together!"

"But I don't anymore! With the mafia and the... the girls it's just not the same! You're treating me differently!"

"The girls... Matty do you mean the fucking hookers? Those girls are nothing Matt it's just sex, I'm a fucking horny teenager okay?" Mello yells exasperatedly.

"Okay, so why are you allowed to have them but I'm not allowed to have her?!"

"Because... because that's fucking different! You don't need her, I'm your best fucking friend! And what the fuck does that mean I'm treating you differently? I treat you the same as fucking always!"

"Why do you need the girls then why not... why not me, why do you never touch me anymore?! Why are you so distant?"

"Matty... wait Matty the touching thing, the fucking fooling around. That's all it was fucking fooling around!"

"Oh..."

"Matty, what did you think it fucking was?"

"I just thought... I just fucking love you Mello!" The words spill out of him like he's always wanted them to, but he's not prepared to confront the disgusted look on Mello's face.

"Fuck no! Fuck don't... no you don't, don't be so fucking delusional! Matt you are like my fucking brother, that's ridiculous!"

"You don't kiss your brother! You don't fucking cuddle into your brothers arms when you're having nightmare's! You don't get jealous of your brother's girlfriend!"

"I'm not jealous of her! You can do whatever you want with her!"

"Then why are so angry about her!"

"FUCK YOU!"

Mello comes at him swinging and Matt raises his hands to cover his face but Mello grabs them. He pushes them back so their pressed against the wall on either side of Matt's head, so Matt is caught between the wall and his chest. He can feel his jaw shaking as he smashes his mouth viciously against his, biting at Matt's lips so that he gasps painfully.

"Mello that hurts!" He protests when his friend has to come up for air, trying to push him away but Mello grabs onto his thighs and hikes up around this waist so that he has to grab his shoulders to keep from hitting his head against the wall painfully. He kisses his ear and bite the shell roughly, growls into it.

"I don't fucking care! You want me to touch you huh? I'll fuck you're brains out then and I'll do it my way! I'll make you so fucking sore but get this, no matter how hard I get off on it it's not going to change anything?! No matter how much I like to fuck you, it doesn't make me like you anymore, because I'm never going to fucking be in love with you! You can be fucking creepily obsessed with me, you can worship the ground I walk on and give no thought to yourself like you do, but I'm never going to fucking love you because I don't have those feelings okay? I have one goal and that's to catch Kira and it's way more important than whatever you've deluded yourself into thinking you feel about me! So here, I'll fuck you all night long and then you can get over this little fucking fantasy you've created!"

His lips are back on Matt's now but it just feels like he's punching him in the mouth and a sob tears itself free from Matt's throat.

"Get off of me!" He chokes out through tears when Mello pulls away and punches him in the jaw to get himself free. Mello just laughs as he stumbles back and rubs his jaw, allowing Matt to slip away from him and head towards the apartment door.

"Isn't this what you fucking wanted?! Or does it not live up to your expectations?! Am I not following the fucking romantic script you've written the one where I tell you, 'Oh Matty I would just die if you weren't here with me, life has no meaning without you, I love you, I love you, oh Matty!'"

"I'm sorry the way I feel about you has been such a fucking burden then... You won't have to worry about it anymore."

"Wait Matty, come on don't be a baby, where the fuck are you going?" Mello asks as Matt laces up his boots.

"Away from you." Matt says, flatly and evenly as he shuts the door to their apartment for what's he thinks will be the final time.


	13. Chapter 13: Vulnerable

_Hey guys, guess what? The Matt and Mello love scene is finally here! Woah woah slow down don't scroll down to that part yet, I'd like for you to read the stuff leading up to it first XD. And don't worry about it being too much for you, it's not too graphic and I'm sorry if that's disappointing to some but I'm not here to write sex, I'm here to try and portray to the best of my ability an intimate relationship between two characters. Besides I'm a cisgender girl who hasn't been even close to any penises, so I wouldn't know how to write a spectacular sex scene between two people with dicks anyways. Also I'm the queen of minimal editing so I apologize for any grammar or spelling mistakes. Anyways I hope you like it and please give me some feedback if you have any, here's Chapter Thirteen: _

"You know Matt as much as I love you, and of course you can stay longer if you really need to, but eventually you have to go back! All of your stuff is there and you can't run away from your problems forever. He's your best friend!"

Matt sat at Andrea's kitchen table sipping at the black coffee that he had let grow cold. It was disgusting, or he knew logically that it should be disgusting, but he couldn't taste it. He hadn't been able to taste much of anything the past month he had been staying here. He just ate because he knew that he had to, it was why he did everything these days. He ate when Andrea ate. He slept when Andrea slept. He talked to her when she talked to him. He knew that it was bothering her; she could tell he had fallen into a slump but she seemed to be trying to carry on as cheerfully as always so she could support him. She deserved so much better than him and when the numbness waned a little from the corners of his insides the guilt for being a burden to her crept in. He still found it hard to believe that she was letting him stay at her house, that she had forgiven him for lying to her. He hadn't known what to expect when he knocked on her door on the night he didn't like to let himself dwell on.

Ironically it had started to rain, so he felt even more like some abandoned stray dog, limping up to her doorstep to whine to be given shelter from the storm. There was surprise on her face when she opened it but she led him into the living room and brought him a towel to dry off with. She kept asking him questions all the while but he took a few moments to be able to reply. It was like the rain had fallen into his mouth as well and trickled down his throat and he was choking on it, water logged his tongue drowned and thrashed in his mouth unable to form words. Eventually though it managed to spit some out.

He apologized for lying to her all the while well doing it again. He knew he would have to keep the Boston part up and leave out the bit about the orphanage he grew up at being one for child geniuses being raised to replace the world's greatest detective. He told her that he had lied because his past with his parents was still too painful to talk about and that was the same reason why he had wanted to keep the part of his life with her and the part of his life with Mello separate. It was because Mello and his past were too intertwined to introduce one to her without introducing the other. Mello's name was difficult to get out. He mumbled it like it was an offensive slur, something he wouldn't want others to overhear. But he had to choke it up a few more times. He explained to her that Mello was angry that Matt had kept his relationship with her a secret since they shared everything and that they had gotten into an explosive argument and he just wasn't able to live with him anymore. He asked her if she could ever manage to forgive him and please let him stay with her until he could get back on his feet and find a place of his own. He told her that he completely understood if she wanted to break up with him for his dishonesty.

Her response had been as gracious as he should have expected it to be. It was so Andrea to cry for him, to tell him that she didn't mean to make him think she was mad at him for lying when she ran away from the record store, that she had just been shocked. She wasn't mad at all in fact, she told him, she was only upset that he felt like he couldn't trust her enough to confide in her and had to lie when he was going through so much pain, that she shouldn't have been so selfish to talk so much about herself and not have asked him more about his own life. She felt horrible and of course he could stay as long as he needed to and that she wouldn't dream of breaking up with him over something like this.

That shut him right up of course, after reassuring her that he did trust her and she had done nothing wrong and had been so kind to him. He knew that he needed to break up with her to truly come clean to her about how he felt, but now he didn't know how. She clearly cared for him so much, had done so much for him, and now he was going to repay her by breaking up with her and telling her that their relationship had been a lie as well? That while he loved her he wasn't in love with her, that he was actually in love with Mello.

It made him want throw up now admitting that to himself, feeling that emotion flush through his whole body and make his pulse reverberate in his ears. The words Mello had said had planted a seed of doubt deep inside him about their friendship, it had never been what he thought it was, a bond based in love so strong that it couldn't be broken, that they would be partners in crime together forever. Had he always been suffocating Mello, hanging off and on to him and clinging with his feelings out in the open so obvious, disgusting him? Had Mello merely been tolerating him and secretly thinking he was foolish and crazy? _Don't be so fucking delusional. _So that's what he really thought; that Matt had twisted their relationship into a fantasy, reading too much into every what he now knew was meaningless touch. And now he had sacrificed their friendship for it, had ruined it by admitting his feelings out loud all in the name of a dream of being reciprocated that wasn't going to come true. He hadn't been satisfied in just being Mello's best friend but now he couldn't even be with him in that capacity. He was hurt, embarrassed, ashamed, and angry and now he would never have the courage to face him again.

"Thank you. I still have my key so I'll go over there and pick up my stuff eventually. When he's at work."

"Oh Matt! You need to go over there and talk to him face to face and work things out by communicating! I'm not going to let you throw your friendship with him away over one fight! You two have been together since you were little; he's the most important person in your life..."

"Andrea it's been over a month and he hasn't tried to contact me. I don't think he wants to talk to me."

"He's clearly just as stubborn as you are if not more! You're both waiting on each other to make the first move of apology and eventually one of you is going to have to crack. Although I do admit that I think that it should be him. It was horrible of him spilling your secrets in the middle of the store like that when you weren't ready to talk about them yet."

_If only you knew how much more horrible things between us are, _Matt thought. _Then you would know how pathetic and awful I am and stop treating me so nicely. _

He had to rely on her to survive for now, until the water that filled his body finally dried, but he promised himself that eventually he would tell her the truth so that she could move on from him and heal. So that at least one of them would be able to. If he was able to make only part of this right then he would, no matter how hard it would be. For now, it felt like nothing would be right ever again.  
>_<p>

When Andrea has shifts at work, Matt lies on her bed and drifts in and out of restless sleep. Under normal circumstances he would be procrastinating by gaming, but even that doesn't hold much appeal for him these days. He knows that he should sneak over the apartment and get his things but he can't bear the thought of accidentally running into Mello, even though there's barely any chance that he would be home during the day. He knows that he should start looking for his own job and his own place so that he can come clean to Andrea, but he can't bear the thought of officially having a new home of sorts, officially recognizing that he's not going to live with Mello again, that they can never go back to the way things were. He doesn't know what he's going to do with his life now. His whole life up to this point has been all about supporting Mello and he's just now realizing how unhealthy it is to be that co-dependent, to have no goals of his own. He has no aim and he realizes he's going to keep drifting endlessly and unhappily if he doesn't find one.

He wakes up one afternoon to the sound of her apartment door creeping open. It's evening now; the sunlight that was previously cast on the bed is now fading away as it slowly travels across the floor. He checks the bedside clock and its 5:00pm but Andrea has the closing shift tonight and shouldn't be home till 12:30pm. For some reason in his half asleep state he jumps to the conclusion that it must be a break in, grabs the lamp off the dresser and yanks the wire out of the electrical socket, clutching it between tightly curled palms like it's a bat he's going to swing. He tiptoes across the carpet and peers out the doorway, instantly locking eyes with the fiery blue irises he thought that he would never have the pleasure of being burned by again.

"Hey..." Mello greets weakly and Matt drops the lamp so that it shatters on the ground into countless white shards scattering everywhere, one flying up to cut his cheek. "Hey be fucking careful!"

Matt carefully steps out of the circle of sharp ceramic pieces towards Mello in the living room but keeps the leather couch between them. Even though he was relieved to look him in the eye, he finds that he can't do it again. He keeps staring at his sweater sleeve that he used to dry the blood from the scratch on his cheek, studying the brown-red blobs as if they're much more interesting then the boy before him.

"So this is where you've been holding up the whole time huh? I used the software on your laptop to trace your cell phone. Surprisingly fucking easy."

Matt continues to admire his arm.

"So do you have any fucking thing you want to say to me?"

"I don't know. Why are you here now?"

"Well, I'm fucking here to bring you home obviously! You can't stay here with hippy girl she's probably busy and stuff."

"And you aren't? You must have been considering it's been almost two months." Matt grumbles bitterly.

"I had to figure a fucking lot out first! Do a lot of thinking... and I didn't really think you would be too happy to see me after you know... the things I said to you..." Mello trails off.

"You were the one who made it sound like you never wanted to see me again, seeing as I disgust you so much." Matt throws at him.

"What?! Don't be so fucking stupid you know that that's not true! You're blowing things way fucking out of proportion, I was just a little pissed off and... confused."

"Well how was I supposed to know it's not true, you can't seem to go a minute without insulting me. You don't treat someone like that just because your pissed off Mello, you don't know how terrible you made me feel, I haven't fucking been able to feel anything since!" Matt shouts.

"You know that's just how I am, you can't expect me to fucking change that, I thought you knew me well enough to know I don't mean it! To understand that the things you told me aren't something you can just drop like a bomb on me and expect me to just accept!" Mello yells back, a little louder than Matt.

"You obviously knew how I felt about you for a long time and were too much of a coward to say anything! You seemed to have a whole speech of bottled up feelings about how me loving you creeps you the fuck out!"

"Fuck can't you see I'm trying to tell you that it doesn't creep me out! That was just how I reacted because... I was fucking freaked out. Not about how you feel about me, yeah I knew for a long time but I didn't realize how I... shit this is hard." Mello curses under his breath.

"So what all that shit about me being delusional was what? Just a defense mechanism? You decided to stomp my self esteem into the ground as a fucking defense mechanism?" Matt asks angrily.

"Well yeah okay and I knew it wasn't fucking right but that's just me! It takes me a long time to realize how I feel and when I did it fucking freaked me out so bad that I had to push you away! So I did!"

"Wait, what the hell are you talking about?" Matt asked.

"You know! I started realizing that I was feeling it too so I...fucking stopped the whole fooling around thing and started seeing those prostitutes and it seemed like I was going to be able to avoid it since you were too chickenshit to say anything! But then I figured out about that hippy chick and it pissed me the fuck off to realize that I had pushed you to her and that you had been telling her all about me. And then you finally said it and I knew I wouldn't be able to fucking deal with it, that I had to make it go away... so I made you go away. Do you get it now?" Mello sighed.

"Um no, seriously man what are you fucking trying to say?"

"I'm trying to fucking say... that I'm in love with you too dumbass! But that fucking scared me because it's wrong for someone like me to feel that way okay, I've never felt that way about anyone, not even L, and it shouldn't even be on my fucking mind because of him, because I have a duty to fill and it's only going to end with both of us hurt! I put you in enough fucking danger as it is, there's enough ways for the mafia or Kira to link you to me and threaten me with you without that! So if I wasn't such a fucking weakling then I would have let you go after that, let you finally have your own life and be safe but I couldn't okay, because you're the only person in this world that I need okay, because I love you! And that's the reason why L made me his 2nd successor instead of 1st, because I can't fucking shut off feelings like that!"

Matt stood there frozen as Mello made his way around the couch to him, as he grabbed his shoulders and shook him as he furiously spit all this out. He couldn't believe what he was hearing even though he had always hoped it was true, all his hope had been erased during their last conversation and now he didn't know how to believe that this was possible. That Mello could love him, it was impossible.

"You can't love me. You said that you could never love me."

"Matty you big idiot, I was fucking lying!"

When Mello presses his lips to his Matt feels like he must be dreaming, like this can't truly be happening but it must be, because Matt's brain could never come up with anything as vivid as the warmth of Mello's arms wrapping around him, of his scorching palms making their way under his sweater to roam and scrape at the skin of his back. Nothing in a dream could feel so real and right, but Matt's scared to let himself savour it. What if Mello's lying to him again, what if there's some other ploy for him to act this way?

"Mello," Matt pants as he finally drags his mouth away from Mello's but this doesn't stop his friend, he just continues to run them over his jaw line and plant a feathery kiss at the edge of his ear. "Do you really mean it? Do you love me?"

"Of course I fucking do dummy. Matty, I love you. You better fucking believe it."

Matt feels the heat pooling in his stomach like a bowl of soup, knows that it's going to melt him from the inside out and turn him to mush but he doesn't care because this feeling is worth it. Mello's moving them over the armrest of couch so that Matt's laying flat back against the cushions underneath him as he reaches to yank his sweater over his head, his fingertips brushing over the cigarette burn scars gently, leaving a hot trail in their wake.

"Matty, you're so fucking beautiful." He whispers, peering down at him through his burning blue eyes.

Matt's breath hitches in his throat as Mello leans his head down to suck at the skin over his collar bone, on his stomach, forming a pinky purple print over each scar. His hips rise as he wraps his legs up around Mello's thighs that are in between his, but Mello forcefully pins them back down and untangles himself, hooking his fingers in the waistband of Matt's jeans.

"_Off." _He growls and with that single word they do come off, Matt wriggling out of them as quick as he can but feeling embarrassed after wards as he's left in his black boxers lifted in the front.

"Let's even up the playing field a bit." He tells Mello, reaching for the zipper of his leather vest and blushing all the while he pulls it down.

The rosary stays on of course, Matt should have known, but he finds he doesn't mind as he traces he hard contours of Mello's chest, even likes the sensation of the metal hanging down to brush against his skin. Mello smirks at Matt's red-faced bashfulness and pulls his legs up around his waist and holds them there, running his palms over them as he kisses Matt roughly and bits at his lips. Matt can feel the warmth in his stomach and groin grow stronger and tighter until it's almost painful, he strains to wrap his legs around tighter and lean up into him and it doesn't escape Mello's notice. He picks his trail down Matt's abdomen back up again but this time he travels lower, down to Matt's pelvic bone to the edge of his boxers and begins to pull them down and off as his lips trail lower too, kissing Matt's inner thigh and making him flinch.

"What are you up to down there?" He laughs nervously, fingernails digging into the couch cushion beside him. Mello grins up at him deviously, letting his teeth graze against Matt's skin.

"Showing you just how fucking beautiful you are."

His mouth takes the tip of Matt in between his lips and sucks, his tongue sweeping out to lick it, and Matt's hands fly to Mello's hair, clutching at the roots as he gasps as all the warmth in his gut builds up there as Mello works him up until it comes spilling over as he shivers it out of him, letting out a moan that's too loud and would make him self-conscious if he wasn't in such bliss. Mello comes back up once he's finished to him to look him in the eye with a smug expression as he traces Matt's cheek with his hand as it flushes and he kisses him gently. The more tender Mello is the less he can face him, it's too strange.

"Don't start getting fucking shy on me now; I was trying to get you to loosen up. I'm the one being fucking vulnerable here, couldn't you feel how much I want you?"

"I'm not getting shy! Where did you learn how to do that? Isn't this your first time being with a dude?" Matt asks nervously.

"Well yeah! But the experience is a bit similar, but with you it's different, I promise. With the girls it was just like a task I had to complete, something to check off a list. I enjoy doing it to you. I like seeing your face and feeling you squirm. I thought you were going to fucking rip my hair out."

Matt wants to hide his face in the cushion next to him at this comment.

"Wow, to add to your shadiness not only are you a mafia member but your also a pervert, making me the only one whose exposed."

"Well how about we even up the playing field a bit more then. Do you want to do the fucking honours?" Mello laughs gesturing to his leather pants.

"Please, I would have to cut them off to get you out of them; it looks like you painted them on! No, you can take care of this part."

Mello does, getting up and off of Matt to slip out of both them and his boxers and stand proudly as if it's the most casual thing in the world, him there naked and staring down at Matt naked. At first Matt thinks that it shouldn't make him so nervous, after all they've seen each other naked before, but then again this is in a completely new and open concept. They both know how they feel about each other now and how they want each other and what's going to happen next. It's an atmosphere of almost unbearable tension.

"Ah! Almost fucking forgot!" Mello exclaims suddenly, breaking the tension to pick up his pants he's slung on the floor to dig into their pocket and fish out a condom, unwrapping it.

"Hey, who decided that you're the one who will be wearing that? And did you really fucking just have that in your pocket; did you plan to seduce me?" Matt asked teasingly.

"Oh please, I'm just always prepared! You wouldn't even fucking know how to put it on anyways, and seeing the way things are going, it seems pretty fucking likely that I'm going to be the one on top. And you fucking like it that way don't you?" Mello replies huskily, kneeling back on to the couch in front of Matt and running his hand over his calf to grab hold of the back of his knee. He leans up over him, pressing his other palm in Matt's hand and clasping their fingers together to let them fall back next to Matt's head. "That makes you all warm and fuzzy and a little freaked out but don't worry, because Mello is going to take very good care of you."

"Oh geez, you're so fucking gross!" Matt laughs and Mello chuckles too before slipping into seriousness.

"But you're okay with this right? Because if not we can just stop right now and wait, or never even do it that's okay too, like I just want to know that this is what you want."

"Mells it is, it is what I want! I love you." Matt says earnestly and it feels so good to say, to have it be welcomed. Mello smiles at him, a real smile not a smirk or a grin and there's so much light in his eyes.

"I love you too, Matty. But," He says as he leans down to press his soft lips to the shell of Matt's ear. "Call me Mihael. Just for tonight, I want to hear what it sounds like from your mouth, when you can't fucking remember how to say anything else."

"Oh my lord," Matt laughs again but his heart is pounding in his chest from the words his best friend- and his lover- said. "Have you been saving up all this dirty shit for this opportunity or something?"

"Well sort off. But I think you like it. But you're ready huh?"

"Yes! Go for it or whatever."

"Or whatever." Mello chuckles. "Okay then."

When Mello's first inside Matt it's a little strange and uncomfortable and he's anxious as hell. But once he shifts around in there a bit soon the warmth is building back up in his insides again and he's eager to meet even the slightest movement, wraps his legs up over Mello's hips so it's easier to do so and scraping his nails down his spine. Mello's breath becomes loud and strained and Matt can tell that he's holding himself back, and he doesn't need him to anymore.

"Mihael," He pants and the name rolls off his tongue gracefully and he instantly loves it. "Give me your all."

Mello laughs at him but listens, becoming more forceful, pulls Matt's hands back from his shoulders and restrains them above his head as he groans.

"You've definitely fantasized about this too, fucking hypocrite."

Matt wants to make a quip back and have the last word but he's too breathless to get anything out but sounds and Mello's name, which he can tell he's way too pleased with. The warmth in his stomach is tightening like a ribbon is being slowly wound around it and he knows that he's going to fall over the edge of his high soon. When he finishes Mello does too, even in sex they're in sync. He pulls out of Matt and falls next to him, throwing his arm over his waist and breathing heavily.

"Well that was fucking spectacular!" He laughs, turning to Matt and kissing his nose who then flushes and covers his face with his hands, peeking at Mello through his spread fingers.

"Fucking right it was, I'm probably the best you've ever had."

"Obviously, you little fucking narcissist. I liked hearing you say my name, it's been a long time since anyone's called me it."

"It's beautiful." Matt says trying to embarrass Mello as well and succeeding as the boy buries his warm face into his shoulder.

"Yeah, whatever. Was it as fucking good as you hoped though?"

"Better than that. But now... I'm kind of scared." Matt admits.

"Scared of what?"

"That... like maybe now you'll be done with me. That it was just physical for you or something because it took so long for you to admit to it, and now there won't be any reason for you to want me to stick around because you'll be over it."

Mello looks miffed by this.

"Matt, the reason it took so long for me to admit it is because it's not just physical, because I love you. If it was just physical I would have fucked you a long time ago without regard for your feelings, because that's just the type of bastard I am."

"I just find that kind of to be a miracle though. As fucking cheesy as hell as it sounds, I'm almost scared I'm dreaming this."

"Why do you find it so hard to believe? Sure, it was pretty fucking hard for me to get around to saying it, but it's not like you're unlovable in the slightest. Lots of people are drawn to you."

"Psh, the hell you talking about?" Matt laughs self deprecatingly.

"Well like Andrea! She fell for you and forgave you even after you lied to her!"

"I think Andrea is more into loving me loving her. Come on Mello, try to use some of your excellent psychology skills here, were the children of abusive parents who were orphaned. There's not a lot you need to put together to figure out why accepting that people love us would be hard for us."

Mello pulls Matt tighter, tucking him under his chin and mussing at his scalp.

"Well then I'll just keep saying it until you accept it, until you're so grossed out by the lame ass mushiness of it that you can't fucking stand it anymore. I love you Matt. I love you, I love you, I love you." He plants a kiss on the top of his head for each one and Matt makes a faux gagging noise.

"You're right that is pretty sickening!"

"Get used to it asshole."

They fall into gentle cozy silence, and Matt can hear Mello easing into sleep, his breath becoming even and deep and he so badly wants to let him. He can see the purple bags weighing down his fierce eyes, the stress wrinkles forming between his brows from too much furrowing, wonders how much he's been worrying in his absence, how he's managed on getting any sleep on his own. He wants to let him rest and forget all his troubles but he has to ask, has to know about what he's been missing, how much Danger that Mello has been in.

"So what's been happening while I've been gone. You know, with the mafia and the Kira case."

Mello lets out a deep sigh through his nose.

"Well I kind of threw myself into both after you left. I couldn't stand to be alone in the apartment honestly, fucking slept in their nasty hideout quite a few times. I'd take their loud obscenities over the silence. And Kira's as fucking powerful as ever with more idiots worshiping him every day. You know when I first started this case I was a real cocky dumbass, I didn't think it would have been this long with no progress made. And I keep thinking about how fucking Near might be doing on it and it's driving me crazy."

Matt's eyes snap open at this.

"Oh Near, fuck I forgot!"

"What do you mean you forgot?"

"He probably thinks something happened to us!"

"What are you talking about? I haven't talked to the sheep since I left Wammy's!"

It's right then that Matt comes to his senses through his foggy happy haze and realizes that Mello doesn't know that he's been sending Near monthly updates through highly coded email just to tell him that both him and Mello had gone to the US and are in LA and are fine, aren't in any danger. It's minimal information, nothing at all to do with the case but he's still terrified that Mello is going to throw a fit about him never mentioning it, having been doing it for the past two years. After his falling out with Mello he had been so depressed that he had forgot all about sending them, and since he had never missed them before because he had wanted to make good on his promise to repay Near for helping them, for all Near knew they both could be dead or something.

"Can you handle just one more tiny thing I've been keeping from you?"

"Oh fuck please tell me you haven't been dating Near behind my back too." Mello snorts and Matt hopes that this may go better than he thought.

"No it's just... when you left Wammy's I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to get out of there to follow you while everyone was on such high alert. So I asked for Near's help, for some reason I knew that he wouldn't be the type to snitch on me. He just had one condition, that every once and awhile I let him know you and I are doing, nothing specific or about the case just where we went and that we're alive and we're okay. He said he just wanted it for his peace of mind."

"And you fucking believed him! What peace of mind, dude's a fucking robot! He just wants to know as much as he can about what I'm doing because he's scared I'll solve the Kira Case first, he just didn't want to push it too much by asking you for specific details but knew he could take advantage to get a few things out of you. Shit, I hope to fucking gosh he never shows up here trying to convince me to work under him or something."

"Mello, I think that he seriously doesn't care about who solves the case, he just wants Kira gone." Matt explains.

"Fuck, he's totally gotten on your good side by helping you track me so I guess I'll have to be the voice of truth here. Dude is just as fucking messed up as I am, maybe even more so. He doesn't care about justice like L did! All he wants is a puzzle to solve, the satisfaction of beating a game, and this is the biggest game in decades! He's not going to fucking let me take that from him easily, he's got tricks up his creepy white pajama sleeves."

As serious as Mello sounds about what he's saying the phrase 'creepy white pajama sleeves' sends Matt into a fit of uncontrollable laughter that could of sent him rolling of the couch if he wasn't snuggled tightly in Mello's arms.

"Well I don't think Near is going to show up at our doorstep, I think he knows you might kill him for trying that! He'll probably go to Japan right, to where it began? That's what L did, maybe we should too eventually."

"We will, don't think I haven't fucking considered it. Near has more resources than we do since he stayed at Wammy's, we've had to collect our own and once we get evener footing, a bit more to go on, then we'll go there to face Kira head on. Did he say he was in Japan?"

"No, he hasn't said much of anything. Actually all he replies with is 'Good'."

"Fucking cold hearted little shit."

"Hey get this Mello, I think he genuinely likes you. I think he has more respect for you out of anyone aside from the respect he had for L and Watari. I think he's even kind of jealous of you."

"Why would he be, he's smug as the devil."

"Because you connect with people on an emotional level, a level that he could never be able to express or reach. In fact, I think L kind of envied that too." Matt muses, thinking back to that confusing night in the Wammy's foyer, a night where he had also been wrapped up in Mello's limbs before being told the disheartening story about Wammy's relationships by the world's greatest detective.

"That's fucking stupid, L never had any time for things like that, any committed detective shouldn't. It's why he placed me second."

Matt wonders if there will ever come a day that the bitterness in Mello's voice doesn't seep into that sentence and make it toxic, something of deep regret, and the emotion in the word second triggers another insecurity in him, one that he's kept locked away since that night but surfaces forward easily now, when he is naked in more sense of the word than one.

"Do you ever resent me for holding you back?"

Mello sits up startled by the question, looks down at Matt with wide eyes but keeps their hands intertwined.

"Why the fuck would you ever think that?! You've never held me back, I was emotional before you came to Wammy's, it's a part of who I am that isn't going away. I'm always lashing out, and it would be even worse if I didn't have you. I don't know how I went this long. I never want to do it again. You know, I think that if you'd never show up at Wammy's I might be dead? I think that sort of thing runs in families you know, the capacity to be able to fucking off yourself."

"Aw fuck Mells, don't say that!"

"I mean it. You've never held me back, if anything you've saved me. You're just my little fucking gay atheist guardian angel aren't you." Mello laughs, but Matt can see through the sarcasm that he means it, sits up as well to embrace Mello, to kiss his cheek.

"Something like that. Dude, we should probably put on some clothes and clear out of here. I've imposed myself on Andrea enough and it would be a final punch to the gut for her to find out I've slept with you."

"Oh fuck you haven't broken up with her yet have you?"

"I know I'm horrible, but I needed somewhere to stay and I just couldn't bring myself to break up with her when she had just forgiven me so willingly like that. I'll do it as nicely as I can tomorrow; I really hope we can stay friends. I know you think she's a bit odd, but she's actually amazing. There's like not an ounce of evil in her, it's just all light."  
>"Not like me huh?"<p>

"Not like me either! I could never actually be with someone like that. She deserves way better."

"I fucking wholeheartedly agree," Mello teases. "But I don't." He leans into Matt and presses their lips together.

In this moment everything is warm and soft and light in the afterglow, everything is peaceful and there's no Andrea, or Near, or Mafia, or even Kira. There are just two young boys holding each other like their only two people in the world, because to each other they are. It's just Matt and Mello, together unveiled and honest like Matt's always wanted to be, and everything feels as right as it could ever be, it's perfect. He just hopes it can stay this way. He wishes that he could stretch out this moment so that it would last forever, so that this would be his whole life. He wouldn't mind that at all, but that wouldn't be much fun for us now would it? 


End file.
